


The Radio Station

by Sunset_In_My_Veins



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Kinda?, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, radio interviews, time jumps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27204082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunset_In_My_Veins/pseuds/Sunset_In_My_Veins
Summary: "I’m still not quite used to these proper radio interviews.” He said as he reshuffled the headset over his clean shaven mohawk. “It all… feels so professional.”She laughed in response to that, “Well, it’s nice to know I’m doing my job right, then!”A sort of different story compared to what I've done in the past. Small snippets in time, across quite a bit of time, focused around radio interviews. Almost all of Matty's interview answers are verbatim transcribed from various interviews, but it's what happens around those answers that's the important stuff.
Relationships: Matthew Healy/Original Female Character(s), Matthew Healy/Reader, Matthew Healy/You, Matty Healy/Reader
Kudos: 8





	1. Think About How to Think

** **

** 6th of December, 2012 **

****

Adjusting the microphone in front of her, she watched while the last few seconds of the song played out. “You ready?” She asked the man sitting in front of her. He looked up from picking at the sleeve of his jacket, nodding apprehensively as she switched the microphones back on. “That was Sex by The 1975 - and as promised, we have here Matthew Healy _of_ The 1975 with us in the studio this morning.” She spoke, turning on the radio presenter voice.

He leaned towards the mic slightly before speaking, “Hi.”

“How are you doing?”

“Yeah, erm… good?” He said with a small laugh, sounding unsure of himself. “A bit nervous.” He admitted as an afterthought.

“About your show tonight at Barfly?” She asked, remembering her conversation earlier in the day. Her managed warned her not to drag the interview out too much as they had a gig later that evening to prepare for.

“Uh, yeah, _that_ , and I’m still not quite used to these proper radio interviews.” He said as he reshuffled the headset over his clean shaven mohawk. “It all… feels so professional.” He shrugged, looking around the studio for the millionth time. When he’d come in, the process of actually having to check in through a receptionist and wait before he was ushered through was fairly intimidating.

She laughed in response to that, “Well, it’s nice to know I’m doing my job right, then!”

She figured it would be best to just get the ball rolling to try and give him something better to talk about than his nerves, “So, you guys have two EPs out now. How many more are there on the cards before an album?” She questioned, glancing down at the sheet of question prompts in front of her.

He appeared instantly more comfortable as soon as the topic switched to something that he had better familiarity with, straightening up in his seat and looking more engaged, “There’s probably another couple to come out before we bring out the full album.”

“It seems that the band is getting some good traction with what you already have out.” She pointed out with a nod. Over the last few weeks at the station she’d had a chance to hear the EPs in passing, and she thought that they were pretty decent. But the station itself had been receiving a fair number of requests for them and pretty good feedback whenever they were on the air.

“Yeah! We’re really humbled that we’ve been given the opportunity to live this past year, and we’re only getting closer as a band.”

“Is there a strategy with how you’re releasing things?” She asked. “Is this all part of some grand plan,” She saw him smile at that, “or a secret to getting your name out there?”

He thought about that for a second, “Kind of a bit of both? When we wrote the first EP, shortly after we’d written the majority of the album, we kind of… I dunno, we just wanted people to…” He paused, taking a short breath as he recomposed his thoughts. “If we were gonna do it, it’s such a personal endeavour, this band. If people are embracing the music, we wanna do it _properly_. We want people to fall in love with a band the same way you fall in love with a person – the more you know about somebody over a longer period of time, the more you both invest in the relationship.” She was taken aback somewhat by his statement. For a band just starting their career, that was a pretty profound thought process. “That was kind of…” He continued, clearly debating over his words slightly. “We had ideas for a lot of material. We wanted records that went against the grain of most EPs nowadays that are just a single. We wanted to release these little records that kind of almost culminated in a debut record.”

“That all sounds pretty well figured out.” She noted, still rather surprised at the extent of his answer. It was intriguing watching him stumble over his choice of words to try and get across exactly what he meant. “Does that mean that the tracks from the EPs are going to be on the full album?”

“There’s a lead track off each EP on the album, yeah.” He nodded eagerly as he leaned forward in his seat. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding that our material works chronologically. We wrote the album pretty much before we wrote the EPs. We took singles off the album and wrote EPs around that to take a bit of the story and embellish it a bit. Create a feel for what the album is gonna be like.” He explained, his hand motions getting more enthusiastic the more he spoke.

She made a soft noise of understanding at his answer. Thinking back to the vibe of the two EPs she had listed to, what he was saying made sense. “From what we’ve heard from you so far, it seems The 1975 has a knack for creating upbeat music with fairly deep lyrics in comparison. Is there a reasoning behind that? Is the album going to be similar?” She asked as she flipped her notepad over.

He let out a sigh as he stared up at the ceiling of the studio, “I dunno… we’re just a band… for ourselves? We just wrote music for ourselves and have since we started when we were kids.” He started, leaning back into his seat. “Because we grew up in punk and pop punk playing around, we were kind of a bands band? Our music just became very, very personal and very, very kind of…” He made a vague gesture with his hands, “I suppose, it’s our only expression? It’s the only thing we’ve ever known how to do. It’s the only form of honest expression we’ve got. A lot of the time it’s quite self-deprecating for me – lyrically. I kind of find solace in it. But I suppose now it’s been romanticised a little bit.”

She wasn’t entirely sure if that answered her question, but pressed on. “Certainly songs like Sex seem to have a lot of girls romanticising _you_.” She threw in with a laugh. He cracked a grin at her remark.

“I think that is a reflection of our music – coming across as sexy. Not just because of, y’know, all this.” He shot back with a wink as he held a hand proudly on his chest. Any awkwardness he had been carrying at the start of the interview seemed to have dissipated now.

“All right, we are gonna play another 1975 song and then we’ll be right back. This one came off of the first EP. This is The City.” She announced, happy to segue away from having to discuss whether she thought Matthew Healy was or wasn’t sexy on live radio. As the track started, she lowered her headphones to sit around her neck, the man across the desk from her following her lead. “You’re killing it.” She reassured him.

“Yeah?” He smiled.

“Yeah.” She chuckled, his enthusiasm now that he was on a roll was contagious. “You obviously know what you’re about.”

“Well, I’ve been fuckin’ thinking about it all for long enough.” He laughed loudly. “We spent ages working out what to do before stuff finally started happening for us.” He added for clarification.

“You’ve been the same group since you were kids?” She asked out of genuine curiosity. He looked like he was in his early twenties now, which would mean that they’d already been a band for quite some time. It seemed odd if that was the case, that they’d only had these two releases.

“Yeah, the four of us since we were fourteen or something. Just messin’ about trying to work out what sounds good.” He confirmed.

“Fourteen? That’s pretty young to start a band.” She said in astonishment.

“Yeah, well… I’d just moved to Manchester; I grew up in the very north of the country…” He started, looking like he was about to launch into another story. Part of her wished she had saved this line of questioning for the interview, but another part of her was secretly mildly honoured he was only giving this information to her. “But I went to high school and there was this kind of thing that was going on where the council were letting old people’s kind of bingo halls be used by kids to start bands. And after a couple of weeks it became this scene and everyone started making punk bands.” He explained.

“So, you got dragged into it by your mates?” She asked.

“Well, in the end our whole social group oriented around that scene.” He shrugged. “We started there at fourteen just because of how fun it was. The fact that we realised we could be genuinely creative but also really indulgent? It was the most fun we could have.” He had a fond smile playing on his lips as he spoke.

“Plenty of time to experiment and work out what you want to be as a band.” She nodded in understanding.

“Exactly.”

“And clearly it’s starting to pay off.”

“You reckon?” He had a genuine look of disbelief.

“I’ve liked what I’ve heard,” She admitted, “and we’ve had nothing but good things coming in about the EPs.”

He scoffed as he ran a hand through his hair, “That’s a lie and you know it. I’m not oblivious to the critics.” He rolled his eyes, but was still smiling. “Thanks, though.”

They had some more casual chit chat between them until the song came to an end and she switched the audio back over. “And we are back!” She said into the microphone, pulling her headset back on. “Still here in the studio with Matthew Healy, the lead singer of The 1975. Now, I believe that you guys had a few name changes before you finally settled on this one?” She asked as she crossed that prompt off of her list. In an effort to be prepared, she’d tried her best to find out as much about the band online as she could to form some half decent questions. She hated feeling like her interviews were just the same as everything else out there.

“Yeah, we did, but that was when we were just a live band, really. We didn’t really wanna put any music out officially until we were _really_ ready. There were also issues with the old names that we had picked. One of ‘em there was another band called that already, Big Sleep, in America, so we couldn’t call it _that_. Another we didn’t really like, The Slow Down…” He said with a shrug. “People like to idealise quite a lot of things… in the end, it kind of became our thing? Changing our name. We didn’t really think people cared about our band, anyway.” He laughed softly.

“They certainly do now.” She smiled across at him, earning what appeared to be a delighted look in response. “So, is there any importance to what you finally settled on?”

“The date doesn’t have any, no.” He said as he shook his head. “It’s this story, that’s been quite over dramatized, to be honest. When I was like… nineteen? I was on holiday with my family. There was an artist who lived in the village who was kind of a local drinker who befriended everybody. I spent a couple of days with him at his house, and he gave me loads of literature to leave with, like Kerouac and beat poetry, you know. Basically one of the books I ended up readin’ six months later, and it had kind of been treated as a diary by the previous owner. And it was dated ‘first of June _the_ 1975’. The use of ‘the’ I felt was quite interesting.” He answered. “It just stuck with me as a kind of… why? What made them write _the_ 1975? I don’t know, but I think it really works with the fact that we were discovering a lot about ourselves, and we weren’t really sure who we were.” He gazed off into the middle distance for a second, looking like he was zoning out. “George felt it was a bit long at first, because you know, seven syllable band name. But once a band name becomes a band name it’s just _there_. It’s like that Pavlovian reaction. But I think when we went in for a meeting with our publisher, we’ve always liked to pitch things left of centre, we said ‘we’re gonna call the band The 1975‘ and they said ‘absolutely no way, it’s too long and there’s never been a big band that’s just been numbers.’ And then we looked at each other like ‘that’s the name.’ so I went and got it tattooed on my arm that day.” He laughed loudly. “Sent them a photo of that-” He held out his arm to emphasise the numbers inked there, “-like ‘that’s the name of the band now!’ As soon as they said there’s never been a big band that’s just numbers, we just thought… _excellent_.”

“The impulsivity worked in your favour, then.” She noted with her eyebrows raised in surprise. To go out and get something like that tattooed as an act of defiance to your creative project was impressive. “Good thing you’ve not had to change it again since.” He just chuckled.

“It seems to fit in quite well, though, the name. What with the whole black and white aesthetic that you guys have created.” She continued, eager to hear what he had to say on this image that they had surrounded themselves with. Everything she had been able to find out about their ‘look’, how they presented themselves, it all seemed highly thought out and planned. But thinking back to what he had mentioned before, if they’d been a band since they were fourteen, it probably had been.

“If you’re quite altruistic in personality, that’s normally twinned with a certain amount of self-awareness. Because you’re exposed to many situations where you’re putting yourself out there a lot.” He started as he fiddled with the cord of his headset. “I think if you’re an artist and you’re like that, you find solace in maybe… detaching yourself from reality a bit? Because you’re not as exposed as normal. We find a lot of comfort in everything being in black and white, because… Yeah, that’s it, you’re not fully exposed.” He explained as if he was mostly talking to himself, or trying to sort out his answer as he said it. “But it really works for our band because it makes it… a bit out of reach?”

“How do you mean?” She frowned.

He hummed thoughtfully to himself before speaking, “There’s a great quote by Kafka, which is that ‘a camel is a horse designed by a committee’…” He said with a pointed look. “Which is like… one person’s vision is always going to be a lot more concise than something that’s been diluted or compromised by a committee. If you want to project a certain image it needs to be an individual’s own vision in order to be really palatable and really concise and really consumable. So, it’s all about creating something that isn’t that accessible, because we live in an industry where accessibility is paramount.” She was starting to realise that this man truly had very roundabout ways of answering questions. However, it was fascinating listening to his unfiltered thought process as he tried to work out what he wanted to say. She couldn’t say she’d had a lot of interviews with people are interesting as Matthew seemed to be.

Taking a quick look at the time, she could see that they had to wrap this up shortly. Between the long-winded questions and the songs, her twenty minutes had gone by quite fast. She’d better start winding this down. “What’s next on the agenda for you guys?” She asked, looking back over to him.

“Uh, let me think…” He racked his brain for what their immediate plans were for the near future. “We’re heading out on tour after Christmas, and then pretty much we don’t stop ‘til sometime next year.” He confirmed.

“ _Sometime_?”

“We’re in high demand, what can I say?” He said with a laugh.

“That’s not surprising, I’m sure it’ll only get harder to get a hold of you guys in the future.” She concurred. “Well, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Matthew. All the best for the tour and for the next EP.” She nodded. He looked caught off guard for a second. Glancing down at his phone, he was surprised to see how much time had gone by. “Thanks for coming in.”

“No, no. The pleasure’s all mine, truly.” He grinned. “Thank you for having me on.”

“I’m sure we’ll be hearing again from you soon.” She finished up, switching his microphone off as she did her outro spiel. He took his headset off, stretching his arms up above his head before standing up and heading towards the studio doorway. It took her a second of seeing him linger in her peripheral vision to realise that he was waiting to say goodbye. As she started the next track, she slipped her headset off and spun her chair to face him.

“Erm, thanks.” He said as he scratched at the back of his neck. “I’ll see you around?” He asked hesitantly. It was curious to see him go from charismatic interviewee to nervous guy in her studio so fast. 

“As I said, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you soon. You’ll be back here in no time.” She assured him. He nodded to himself, looking pleased as he headed back outside.

It was another twenty minutes after Matthew stepped out before her shift ended. Thankfully, she was able to get out of the office pretty quickly. Sometimes she ended up being held back for up to a couple of hours if there were meetings and such that required her attention. And today wasn’t a day that she wanted to deal with any of that. It had been a pretty shitty Thursday to start with. She’d had terrible traffic on the way in, couldn’t find a parking space, had to trudge her way to work in the cold, dropped her coffee when someone ran into her on the way – she just wanted to end a long day. It was approaching evening as she stepped out into the brisk winter air, letting out a sigh as she looked around the street. She started making her way to her car only to catch sight of a familiar mohawked man standing at the side of the station building, smoking with a few other guys. As soon as he spotted her, he shouted her name and waved her over. She debated whether she should go over and talk to a group of more or less strangers or not, but he seemed pretty keen on her joining them. He turned briefly back to the guys he was standing with and as she approached she heard the tail end of him explaining what had happened in the interview.

“This is the band!” He said excitedly.

“Oh!” Instantly, that made a lot more sense than him larking about with a bunch of random people. She took in the other three men he was standing with, noting that they were all quite a bit taller than he was. “You guys could’ve come in to the interview, you know.” She said as she wrapped her arms around herself to try and block out some of the cold threatening to seep in through her jacket.

“Nah, it’s fine.” One of them with somewhat of a beard shrugged.

“We’d rather let him do the talking.” Another quietly agreed.

“He’s loud enough for all of us.” The last one, that also had a kind of mohawk thing going on, spoke up.

“Hey! Fuck off!” Matthew shoved the last one with a loud laugh.

She stood around with them for a bit while they smoked, listening to Matthew talk about the interview and answering the odd question that the band members had for her. This man seemed far more sure of himself than the uncertain one she kept seeing in the interview. He prattled on excitedly about tour and the next EP and just generally seemed more confident. The band only spurred him on as well, encouraging him and getting into in-depth conversations about the tiniest details. She could see where those long-winded answers had come from in their interview. If he held this level of passive confidence and enthusiasm in a casual environment, it was only a matter of time before that started shining through in his career. And it was truly no surprise after speaking with them that this band was getting popular at the rate that they were. They were obviously talented, and had enough drive and direction to push themselves through whatever challenges they faced. She could tell that The 1975 were only just beginning their music industry journey. It was after about fifteen minutes that she figured she had better excuse herself and actually go home – she didn’t really have any reason to hang around here, even if it was nice to chat with such an interesting group of people.

She waited for a lull in the conversation (which wasn’t very forthcoming) before finally making her move, “I might get going…”

Matthew’s face fell a little before he recomposed himself. “Why don’t you come down to the pub with us for a bite?” He suggested.

“Ah, thanks for the offer but I’ve got places I need to be, and I don’t usually mix business with pleasure as they say.” She chuckled lightly. “Nice to keep things separate.”

“It’s also nice to make exceptions sometimes.” He shot back; a challenging eyebrow raised. “But it’s cool.” He said with a shrug as he dropped his cigarette onto the ground, snuffing it out with his shoe. “For real, though, thank you for all the kind words about the band and the music in the interview. A station with as many listeners as yours… your words mean a lot.” He nodded, looking pensive about whatever was going on in his head.

“It’s really no problem. I meant everything I said.” She smiled back at him. Before she could get on her way, he pulled her into a tight hug. She hadn’t overly expected that from the man she’d known all of about an hour, but she hugged him back regardless, happy for the brief warmth after standing in the icy street. “I’ll, uh,” She cleared her throat, attributing the heat she could feel in her cheeks to being in the cold for so long, “I’ll see you at the next interview.” She said as she finally headed towards her car, leaving Matthew staring after her before heading back to his band mates.


	2. I'm So Excited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've only just noticed that this chapter didn't seem to post for some reason when I thought I put it up on Thursday. Sorry about that! Here it is now.

** 21st of August, 2013 **

The email had come in from her boss about a week before the interview was scheduled – next Wednesday, Mathew Healy was going to be back on her show. A part of her felt kind of anxious about this fact. Since the last time they had met, the band had indeed taken off as she predicted. Their popularity was only snowballing and the man that she had the pleasure of knowing for a brief while was revelling in it (from what she had seen in other interviews, anyway). She tried to remind herself that he was very easy to get along with the last time, so this should be no different. And she had met some substantially larger names than The 1975 in her time at the station. So, her anxiety was therefore fairly unwarranted. Which begged the question about _why_ she felt those nerves sitting at the pit of her stomach in the first place, just from knowing that he was coming back into the studio. However, there wasn’t any point in stewing over it, nor was there time to, because he was knocking lightly at her glass door before she knew it. His mohawk had grown out a bit since she’d last seen him eight months ago, but otherwise he looked largely the same. She had a feeling he was even wearing the same black jacket he’d been wearing before. Looking behind him, it would seem that he’d brought one of the guys with him that she had seen him with after their last interview. If she recalled correctly, he was their drummer.

“It was Matthew, yeah?” She asked, trying to play it cool as she ushered the two of them inside. She hoped that it wouldn’t be apparent too quickly that she had been watching The 1975's movements closely since they’d met. Though, if Matthew was as clued on this time as he was the last time they’d spoke, she likely wouldn’t be able to hide it for long.

“Yeah, but Matty’s better.” He grinned. There was a short pause as he stopped for a beat and maintained eye contact, before remembering that he had someone else to introduce. “And I don’t think you guys formally met last time, but this is George. I dragged him along, hope that’s okay.” He added as he gestured to the man standing behind him. 

“Good seeing you again.” George nodded politely.

“You as well.” She replied. “Take a seat you guys, there’s still a couple of songs that have to play through before I introduce you.” She said as she gestured to the other side of the desk. Matty gladly took the usual guest spot as George dragged across the smaller chair from the corner of the room.

“How’ve you been?” Matty asked eagerly, shuffling around in his seat as he tried to get comfortable.

“Yeah, good. Pretty much the same as usual.” She chuckled as she took a sip of her coffee.

“I’m surprised that you’re still running the lunchtime shift and they’ve not bumped you up to some prime time, peak-hour traffic slot.” He said casually, earning an incredulous laugh from her. The morning and afternoon shifts were the most coveted positions at _any_ radio station, let alone one as big as this. She was pretty happy that she’d managed to land a job that gave her hours during the day as opposed to a midnight shift.

“Ah, I think I’d need a bit more of an audience before that happened.” She replied.

“I dunno, from what I’ve heard you seem to have a decent following.” He said with a shrug.

It was quiet for a moment as she processed that. She was pretty certain she could hear the clock hanging above the door ticking quietly as her brain tried to catch up. “You listen to the show?” She asked eventually.

“Whenever I get a chance, yeah. Or just catch a few highlights here and there on social media.”

That truly caught her off guard. Matthew Healy was out there writing albums, playing shows, _and_ listening to her radio show? _Why_? Surely, he had better things to do in his downtime? “Uh, so what about you guys?” She asked, clearing her throat and trying to change the topic before he took note of how flustered she was becoming at this knowledge. “How’s things?”

“Really good!” He grinned. “We had Glastonbury recently which was _amazing_ , and have Reading and Leeds coming up this weekend, and-” He started rattling off, quickly stopped by George as he put a hand down on the singers’ shoulder.

“Don’t wanna give too much away before the interview starts, Matt.” He laughed softly.

“Well, no, but-“

“You have to save the stories or you’re just gonna end up repeating them.”

“I can tell different ones.”

“You’re gonna tell the same ones that you tell every time, I know you are. And you won’t wanna tell them in the interview because you already said them now.”

“You don’t know that.” Matty frowned, clearly keen to push the point.

They continued this back and forth for a while before she intervened, “ _Anyway_ ,” She sensed she had to diffuse this argument before it progressed into teenage bickering. “let’s do an interview.”

The two of them instantly tuned out of their conversation and back into the matter at hand as she began flipping switches. She pulled her headset on as she gave them one last cursory glance to make sure that they were ready.

"Hope you’re all having a pleasant afternoon out there, folks.” She spoke into her microphone. “As per usual on our Wednesday shows, I do have some special guests here in the studio with me to have a chat.” She said, nodding across to Matty to introduce himself.

“Hey! It’s Matty from The 1975.” He said with an excited grin.

“And George.” His friend added, leaning across to be closer to the mic. “Great to be here.”

“So, it’s been about nine months since you were here-”

“Entirely too long, if you ask me.” Matty chimed in casually. She pressed on, trying to ignore the charm that seemed to radiate from just about everything this man said.

“-and all of the EPs are out now, correct?” She continued.

“Yep.”

“Your album comes out in just under two weeks?”

“That sounds about right.”

She glanced down at the notepad in front of her, but she was pretty sure that over the last week she had memorised these questions front to back. “Are you excited for the album to finally be out? You were saying last time that it was practically already written back when you started the EP concepts.”

“We're definitely excited to finally hear people's reactions after how much traction we've gained from the EPs.” George began.

“It's been sitting in our heads for so long, it was almost hard to postpone it, but we wanted it to be perfect.” Matty threw in. “We didn't really expect to have such a positive reaction so soon, so it'll be interesting to see what people do with the main event.” Matty answered with a daydreamy look flashing in his eyes for a moment.

“I’ve really been enjoying the EPs.” She added, which instantly caught Matty's attention.

“Have you?” He asked instantly.

“Yeah, they've had a fair few spins through my playlists.” She laughed, suddenly making him grin ear to ear.

“You mentioned the positive reaction, Matty. With how fast you guys have taken off, I've heard a lot of people out there referring to The 1975 as an overnight success.” She prompted. “But you guys have been working on this since you were teenagers.”

He let out a sigh. “There _is_ so much stuff about us being an overnight success…” He pulled a hand through his hair as he looked over at George. “It’s been ten years, actually.” He chuckled.

“Was the ten years worth it when you got the call to open for the Stones?”

“Yeah. Yeah!” He almost shouted, now letting out a full laugh. “it’s stuff like that, that really makes you appreciate it.”

George nodded along with him. “I think this whole year’s been worth it. Not just the Stones show, we’ve had a lot of great festivals and great sold out shows. It’s been strange. Surreal telling people about those events.” He elaborated.

“We didn’t mean for any of this to happen, really. So, it was a bit daunting initially.”

“You guys are still on tour?” She asked, moving along to the next topic.

“Yeah, have been since we last spoke.” Matty said with a nod. “Not really getting off tour until...” He seemed to be counting in his head. “December _next_ year.”

“ _Next_ year?” She asked in surprise. “That's quite a long tour.”

“We are just… constantly on the move now.” He shrugged.

“That's for sure. It’s been a big year for The 1975. You guys had Glastonbury in June.”

“Yeah! That was amazing. It was incredible to play at a festival that we all grew up going to.”

“And have Reading and Leeds coming up this weekend with some big names.” She reminded him.

“Crazy…” He agreed. “We haven’t really been in the country for a lot of it. When Chocolate went so mental, we’ve been in America and Europe and just touring. We’ve just seen each other every day, it’s not really been that different for us. But the shows are getting bigger, people are really investing in the band, so it’s an amazing time.”

“You guys also did South by South West, which was eleven shows in five days.”

“That was mental.” George scoffed.

“Yeah! We were quite surprised to see how many people came to all of those shows. Chris Martin said the most perfect thing ever - of all people - if you throw a party and like 50 people come up, so imagine doing that for twice, three times the amount of that, every night, in cities you’ve never even really heard of. We turned up in Milwaukee and 350 people came to the show. We had a sold-out show in new York.” He rattled off, seeming slightly bewildered at the memory.

“That's pretty crazy to be making such big waves in a different country like that.” She concurred.

“I think it’s a testament to the internet, really. How far we’ve come from Manchester all the way across the world.” The drummer offered.

Matty instantly took that thought and ran with it, “God, I could talk about it for ages. It’s strange to go somewhere – when you go to places, and you realise you have a following there… your identity, your sense of self, almost feels slightly diluted? Because you’re in somewhere so unfamiliar, but witnessing the most familiar parts of your life. Your material, your art. It’s weird, man.” He said, shaking his head slightly.

“Does it intimidate you guys at all?” She questioned.

“No.” He instantly answered. “It’s amazing, a very humbling experience. It’s just very odd, the power of the internet? It’s kind of unsettling, but not intimidating. Kind of feel like you’ve lost a part of yourself a little bit.”

“How so?” She urged him to continue.

“Well... that’s when you’re at your most honest, isn’t it? When nobody knows who your band is. Now people know who we are. I’m the protagonist in every song I write. Which means every time I put stuff out there, it's putting out a part of me. Every conversation in a song is me and a normally female counterpart.” He tried his best to explain. “But that’s a subconscious thing.” He added as an afterthought.

“So it's like you're a little too transparent putting that much of yourself out there to such a large group of people?”

“Well, yeah. Your identity becomes kind of vaguely diluted because it’s not as embedded in what you’re familiar with anymore. Your identity kind of extends to places that you don’t really understand. It’s quite an unsettling thing for me.” Matty looked like he was struggling to find the right adjectives to describe the feeling. “It’s interesting. It’s cool.” He eventually settled on.

“Does that sort of feeling ever bother you when you're on stage?” She asked.

“Not at all. Performing is one of the only times I feel satisfied.” He laughed. “I just love it. It’s like putting on a party every night.”

“Would you guys ever do another big supporting tour like The Stones?”

“Probably not right now.” George supplied, before Matty spoke over him.

“There’s been a genuine investment from our fans. Every show we put out sells out really quickly now. We’ve not been able to meet the demands of the amount of people who want to see _our_ band. As much as going off and playing with popstars in arenas would be fun, I think that would be an indulgent decision. It wouldn’t be for the right reasons. We need to play our own shows… we’ll have the opportunity for all that later.” He answered decisively. George seemed happy with this. “I don’t want us to get too big too quickly, you know? A lot of people feel like we’re _their_ band. 'You’re _my_ kinda band.' That’s how I always used to fall in love with bands. I don’t wanna lose that. I want that to remain, because it really is important to me that every single person _gets_ the band.” It wasn't hard to believe that Matty meant what he was saying with the amount of conviction in his voice as he spoke into the mic in front of him.

“We have quite a strict door policy on our band. We don’t want idiots gettin’ in.” George threw in to try and lighten the mood.

“Back to Reading and Leeds, then. You're playing with the likes of Fall Out Boy and Green Day. Those are some massive names that'll be bringing in big crowds.” She started her line of questioning, waiting for them to respond before she continued.

“Yeah... We haven’t played to _that_ many people.” Matty wiped his hands down his face as he took in a deep breath. “But it’s a real validation of all you’re doing. It’s not something we’ve ever craved, but it’s something we’ve really, really embraced and something that pushes us forward as creative people. It's cemented our identity as a band.” He replied.

“Are you nervous?” She asked with a smile.

He chuckled slightly, “Yeah, a little bit, but not really. What’ve we got to be nervous of? If people are there, they’ve already made that investment in us. We’ve just gotta show up and provide what we _are_.” George nodded. “And we can do that, so let’s just do it, d’you know what I mean?”

“All right, we're gonna play a couple of songs and then we'll be back with some questions you guys sent in earlier in the week.” She spoke into her microphone before cutting away.

“Fan questions?” George asked in curiosity as he took his headset off.

“Yeah. The station told people to text stuff in through the week and I've picked a few to ask.” She said with a nod as she took a swig from her cup of coffee.

“Hopefully you picked good ones.” Matty said with an eyebrow raised.

“You'll just have to see.” She shot back, earning a grin from him.

“You do brilliant interviews. I can't imagine you'd give us shitty questions.” He added. She tried her best to make sure he wouldn't see the slight blush on her cheeks at the compliment.

“You know, you should come out to a show sometime.” He segued. She was all too happy for an out from that conversation before it progressed.

“You guys hardly ever play here.” She pointed out.

“Come see us at Reading.”

“I hardly think you guys are high enough up on the bill to be offering to get me into a major festival for free.” She tried to sound accusatory, but couldn’t stop herself from cracking a small smile.

“Ask the station to get you in.” He suggested. She noticed that he seemed… rather eager about this idea.

She sighed deeply as she mulled this over. It would be nice to see them play live. It would be nice to see Matty again. Seeing him at a show counted as work, right? She could use that as a loophole in her own rules. “I’ll see what I can do.” Matty’s eyes practically lit up at her words.

“Okay, we're back with Matty and George of The 1975, here to answer some questions sent in by you lovely listeners.” She started, flipping over her notebook to the scribbled fan questions. “First up we have Louise who wanted to know, what's your highlight been so far?” The two men sitting across from her both let out a groan.

“So much has happened...” George mumbled.

“The whole thing has just become a bit of a blur, to be honest with you.” Matty answered. “It’s just loads of surreal situations strung together by doing interviews. I’d like to be in that place of having that much foresight – that much retrospect and hindsight. Everything’s happened so quick… I don’t know how I’m gonna feel about it. I can’t imagine things can continue being _this_ intense in another year.” He paused for a moment, before pulling himself back on track. “Having a genuine connection with people who I never would’ve thought had even heard of our band _every night_ , just that kind of…extended feeling… is the highlight of every night.”

“That's quite a nice sentiment.” She nodded.

“When we were a lot smaller in the UK, like January, a couple came up to me after a gig in London. And said that they’d fallen in love with each other through our EP – the Sex EP. They’d started speaking about it when they were out with a group of friends. They’d met and said ‘you know this band The 1975’ and they fell in love with that record and now they’re getting engaged.” He looked absolutely astounded by this, looking across to her to make sure she understood how crazy that was. “And I _love_ that. It nearly made me cry. Because that’s it. That’s all we wanna do. For our music to affect people emotionally. If you have an artistic expression that does that… there’s nothing more beautiful, really. And if that’s your job, how can you get any better than that?” He finished with a shrug.

“Next we have Sam who's asked could you guys imagine doing something else instead of being in the band?” She questioned, crossing it off her list.

“We can’t do anything else.” George said with a laugh, instantly making his friend do the same.

“The band is the only expression we have. That’s bought from being complacent on working for anything else, and being totally, _totally_ narrow minded and blind. We’ve never thought of the idea of this _not_ happening.” Matty said.

“David has asked, how do you keep going?”

“Alcohol.” Matty instantly laughed. “Not really.” He quickly corrected. “It’s been the only thing we do, y’know? It’s not like we were in a band and had other interests. As soon as we became consumed by this band, we just stuck together as individuals. I think also because our social group has always orientated around us as a four, there’s never been any reason for us to not make music. It’s almost as if someone said ‘yeah, all right’ and then we got embraced by lots of different people and institutions.” He explained.

“Have there been any bad times?” She asked. “That was from Anna.”

“Not really?” George frowned. “I suppose when we were being wined and dined by the labels and then everything kind of fell apart? But it ended for the better, because we then signed a great deal on an indie that allowed us to have total creative control. Retrospectively we wouldn’t have had it any other way.” He answered.

“But it wasn’t _that_ bad!” Matty chimed in. “Getting’ flirted, y’know. We were really young when all these labels were going for us. We were always quite fortunate as a band to have a lot of foresight.”

“Right, on that note, Jessica has asked how hard is it to stay true to your original ideas when speaking to labels?”

“You get really excited for the first few encounters, then you quickly learn to tame yourself and not get excited until you’re physically doing what has been said that they’ll do for you. You’ve gotta keep your head.” George answered.

“We just prided ourselves on our conviction. The only reason we wanted to do was this because it was on our terms.”

“Okay, Brian has asked if you guys ever fall out?”

“No.” Both of them instantly answered.

“We Just avoid that stuff and let other people deal with it. It’s too much of a personal endeavour to let the small stuff get to you. It’s not like we’re four boys who started a band because we wanted to be in a band, we’re four mates who ended up in a band by accident. So, pfft, whatever.” The singer scoffed.

“We’ve not focused on the financial stuff or anything like that. The only thing we have maintained is to have the final say and total creative control, and we all agree on that so there's not been any arguments to have.” George said.

“Last serious one and then we have some quick fire stuff.” She said as she scribbled out the last question. “Brendan wanted to know what your biggest accomplishment is so far?”

“Just making the record.” Matty said with a shrug. “I don’t really care how that record’s perceived or embraced, because it’s such an honest record - it’s such an honest depiction of who we are and where we’re from. It’s so uncompromised. The fact that a band like _us_ managed to make a record like _that_ without compromising at all… I’m just proud of that as an idea.”

“Okay, some short and sweet ones to end out the interview.” George and Matty sat up a little straighter in their seats. “Who's the best behaved?” She asked.

“George is tidy, I guess?” Matty seemed hesitant as he glanced at his mate. “He’s quite well behaved but we’re all quite well behaved because we’ve been in a band for a long time. This a very… kind of pursuit for music for us. A lot of our partying doesn’t actually happen when we’re on tour. We try and be as good as possible. All of us have our moments? We’re in a rock band, y’know what I mean?” He chuckled, running a hand through his mohawk.

“These are meant to be quick, Matty.” She reminded him with a smile. “If you could pick one person dead or alive to be stuck on an island with, who would it be?”

“Musically? Michael Jackson – just to go through musical ideas. But I think he’d get on my nerves after a couple of days.”

“Yeah, same.” George agreed.

“Can you moonwalk?”

“Yes. Very well.”

“Which celebrity do you think would have the best banter at a party?”

“Anyone from Geordie Shore.”

“If you could swap wardrobes with anyone, who would you want it to be?”

“ASAP rocky. For sure.”

“Write us a poem.”

“That's not quick fire!” He scoffed with a laugh. “And that's not a question!” He added, now properly laughing. “In an interview, the idea is to ask questions that I can answer. You’re giving _me_ all of the work.”

“Ahh, I thought you'd be able to churn out something instinctual like those people who spill the truth after a bunch of quick questions.” She grinned.

“Well, that's all we have time for.” She sighed, leaning back a bit in her chair. “Thank you guys for coming in to the studio to have a chat.”

“It's no problem.” George smiled sweetly.

“We'll be here any time you want us on.” Matty replied.

“That was Matty and George from The 1975, and a track from them is coming up next.” She finished up as she set Chocolate up to play next. The two boys started getting up from their seats, grabbing their stuff and straightening out their jackets. As they were about to leave, she heard Matty tell George to go on ahead and he'd catch up. She spun in her chair to face him as he walked back over to her.

“I was serious , by the way.” Matty said, leaning back against the desk. “Any time you want us on the show, or if you wanna come out to see us play, just let me know.” He said as he held out a piece of paper. She took it from him, realising it had his number scrawled on it.

“Is this meant to be a subtle way of giving me your number?” She frowned up at him, but he definitely caught on to the excitement she was trying her best to hide.

“It can be whatever you want it to be.” He shrugged with a smirk as he followed after his friend.


	3. Stay Another Hour or Two

** 19th of September, 2013 **

Unbeknownst to her, Matty had been just as excited about a second interview as she was. After the praise she had given both him and his music the first time, he had found himself a bit smitten. Waiting for the next time he was in London to hope that the station reached out again had been mildly nerve-wracking, but his patience had been worth it. It gave him the chance that he wanted. He had given her his number in the hopes that maybe she'd make a move. If she came to him first, that saved him a lot of trouble and allowed him to side-step any awkward tension if it turned out she wasn't into him. She hadn’t managed to get out to Reading around her other work obligations, but she’d let him know that she tried. He had hoped this would be the start of more frequent communication. But, they hadn't really had much of a chance to act on anything in that regard. Because as soon as the full-length album was out, the station wanted Matty back on the show.

“It feels like it was only yesterday that I was here.” Matty laughed from the seat across from her as she fiddled with a few things on her side of the desk.

“It’s only been a month, I think?” She mumbled, clearly focused on something.

“About that, if I recall.” He nodded.

“No George this time?” She asked absentmindedly.

“I'd rather have you all to myself.” She hummed a noise in response that made it hard for him to work out if his flirting had landed or not. But he did think that maybe she was trying to avoid looking directly at him. And... maybe blushing? “Been up to much in the last month?” He segued.

“Not particularly.” She said with a shrug. “You? Touring?” She asked back, but he skipped right over that.

“Haven't been painting the town red? Going on dates? Suddenly acquired a boyfriend?” He asked as nonchalantly as possible, suddenly busying himself with his phone.

She let out an abrupt laugh as she finally looked over at him, “No, Matty.” He just nodded thoughtfully. “Come on, you dork. Let's do this.” She said, looking fairly amused by his antics as she pulled her headset back on.

“And we're back, with a voice a few of you might find familiar as he was on the show only a month ago.” She gestured to him to do a little introduction.

“Hi, it's Matthew Healy from The 1975.” He spoke in a calculated voice into his mic.

“Back again so soon?”

“That's what I get for complaining it was too long last time.” He said with a light laugh.

“But you've done a lot in a month! Your full length, self-titled album is out now, you played Reading and Leeds, and you're even playing at the O2 Sheperd's Bush Empire tomorrow.” She listed off.

“Yeah! We never stop, really.” He chuckled as he shook his head a bit. “The acceleration over the last six months has been _crazy_ fast. But we’ve been a band for such a long time so it feels justified.”

“Your enthusiasm and motivation is truly next level.”

“Gotta keep the hype going, you know?”

“Has it left you guys feeling a bit worn out?” She questioned. “That sort of non-stop lifestyle would've burnt many people out by now.”

“Ah, no way! We’ve had five years of doing nothing. This is fun.” He grinned broadly. “I’ve got a break of about a week and a half over Christmas, but I’ve gotta move into a new flat. I’ve got loads of stuff to move. I had to buy luggage while on tour. I have so much fan stuff now – letters, drawings, puzzles of my face.” She couldn't help but laugh at the thought of that and how surreal it must be.

“So, the album is out now. Have you been happy with how it was received?” She asked.

“Like everything that we do, it was totally down the middle. Half the critics absolutely loved it, half of them hated it. I think Vice called it the worst album of the year.” He said with a loud laugh. “It’s so funny how subjective music can be. But I don’t really care, you know. Our fans have embraced it massively.” He smiled.

“Well, it went to number one!” She reminded him.

“Yeah! That was pretty awesome. The fact that it went to number one is amazing.” He huffed with a look of giddy disbelief as he pulled a hand through his hair. “We didn’t really need any kind of statistical validation to be proud of that record, we were as proud of it as we could be as soon as we finished it. But it was nice to know that people still like good music.”

“I can imagine that would've been quite satisfying for you guys. It definitely deserved to reach number one.” She said with a nod.

“You've listened to it?” He asked in curiosity.

“Yeah, I’ve listened to it a bit.” She confirmed with a nod. “Actually, 'a bit' is probably an understatement.” She corrected.

“Oh really?” He blurted out eagerly before clearing his throat and trying to dial it back. “That’s cool.”

“Are you able to tell us a bit about the thought process behind the album? What ties it all together?” She questioned. He noticed she didn't have a notepad this time like she had previously.

“I don’t think there’s a concrete narrative that runs from the beginning to the end. It's not that sort of album. We knew we wanted to make a long album. Sixteen tracks, you know. But I suppose it’s all about me and my relationships, like the EPs…” He hummed for a moment as he tried to pull his thoughts together. “The album ended up being like a scrapbook of conversations and situations that kind of, when it was all put together, made this story of our youth? I think that’s what the album is.”

“Stylistically it’s all quite different, some of the songs sound like they could be from entirely different artists, let alone on the same album.” She noted.

“There’s a bit of a stylistic polarity, it’s quite genre-bending, the sounds.” He nodded in agreement. “But then again, we kind of wanted to make one of those records like the best pop records from the 80s. Like Michael Jackson on Bad. That was kind of the vibe we wanted to do. We didn’t pull any punches. We didn’t think we need to be a bit ‘cool’. We thought we’d just do exactly what we want.” He explained simply.

“That attitude seems to have resonated well with your fans.” She continued.

“Well, we wanted people to feel about our record the same way we felt about records that were really important to us. I want people to love the album, I want people to be able to not listen to the album because it reminds them of someone, I want it to bleed into humanity.” His passion for his music was unmistakable. She felt it was a shame that her interviews weren't filmed, so much of his personality and sheer enthusiasm came through in his expressions. 

“It's interesting that you've been able to achieve that sort of appeal with something you've described as so personal and so heavily based around your own experiences.”

“The more specific you are, and the more honest you are about _you_ , the more grandeur the idea becomes. Because if you give someone a really, really specific idea instead of something vague, they can read into it so much more.” He said thoughtfully. “It’s immediately captivating. Rather than a vague idealism that you may or may not have experienced. Whereas if you hear a really specific thing, hopefully across the album there will be something that someone could really,” He clicked his fingers with a look of sincerity, “immediately feel you’ve experienced.”

“You would've definitely gained some new fans now that the album is properly out. I believe I've even heard of a few big musicians singing your praises.” There was always seemingly some artist or other causing a stir on Twitter by tagging The 1975 in their tweets. “Do you guys have any biases towards someone who's famous being a fan? Or do you see all fans as equal?”

“Oh, well, you know, all fans are equal. I mean it’s nice to be validated by those you respect and interesting to be validated by those that you don’t. But that is a nice thing about it – when your heroes become your peers. But…” Matty made a face like he was trying to pick his words carefully, “I don’t really care about the whole celebrity thing very much, it doesn’t really mean anything. My parents are famous. I grew up around it. I kind of understand what it means – or more importantly, what it doesn’t.”

“Do you find that sort of celebrity complex of what that attention means gets to you?” She asked.

“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “It's weird reading so much about yourself. Am I actually this celebrity person I see on my phone or am I me? I don’t really know.”

“Leading on from that then, how are you finding being a role model to so many people now that your celebrity status has grown so much?”

He instantly grimaced. “I’m really uncomfortable with it. Part of me thinks, it’s better they look up to me than a lot of people I know. But I shouldn’t have that responsibility as a 24 year old guy… y’know?” He huffed. “It’s hard for me, because I don’t really hold dear a lot of the values that fame presents. But the world of fame, the world of celebrity, has picked me up from a life of obscurity and put me into this whirlwind of money and bollocks and girls… I think we kind of invest in our own relationships a lot.” He stopped himself for a minute as he took a drink from the mug of tea she'd given him. “I don’t know what to say to a lot of these kids. The whole thing of becoming a figure of sexual desire, that’s understandable. That comes with the territory, that comes with young girls, that comes with them growing up. But the idea of me becoming a figure of intellectual desire? Something people look up to as almost an orator or a speaker or somebody with opinions? That makes me feel uncomfortable.” He shook his head as he scratched at the back of his neck. “Because I’m not this honest person that’s been depicted in the media. I’m very, very defiant about being honest lyrically, but that doesn’t come from a place of genuine lack of care – I’m actually really neurotic and insecure. The only reason those lyrics are like that is because I wrote that album before anyone knew who we were. I didn’t have to think 'am I being too honest?' ”

She paused for a moment as his words sank in. It hadn't been her intention to get him onto such a heavy topic, but he certainly seemed to have no trouble dissecting his thoughts on the matter and she was certain her listeners would be enjoying the insight. “Let's shift onto a lighter topic.” She started, knocking him back to reality. “I've probably heard interviewers ask you about the origin of the band name... three dozen times by now since I asked in our first interview?” Matty chuckled at that, but urged her to continue. “Is it validating to know people are so interested?”

“Good question… I don’t know. I think because… I get a bit tired of it. “ He admitted truthfully. “I really, really appreciate it when someone looks at an interview from my perspective and how it might be for _me_ , because I’m the one who does the majority of them. I don’t know why people are so interested in the name. But then I think, hold on a second, if I didn’t know where a bands name came from would I be genuinely interested? And maybe I would… I think people like to understand music. They like music to be something that’s really consumable and palatable and understandable. Whereas we’re the total antithesis of that, aren’t we?”

“I'm almost tired of hearing it come up in interviews.”

He laughed loudly, “Yeah, so am I.” He nodded. “ _So. Am. I._ ”

“That seems like a good point to cut away to a few tracks.” She said with a sigh as she pushed herself back into her chair. “Do you have any requests off the album, Matty?” She asked.

He thought about this for a moment, “What's your favourite off the album?” He asked with a smirk.

“At the moment? I've been listening to Girls a lot.” She answered as she began queuing it up.

“Then let's hear that.” He nodded decisively.

“You heard it, folks. This is Girls off The 1975's self-titled album.” She said into her microphone as she watched Matty take his headset off and sink back into his chair. “Sorry for getting you onto such an intense tangent there.”

“It's all right, I'd rather have an intellectual conversation than have to repeatedly explain the band name.” He said with a short laugh. “That's why you do good interviews - you ask proper questions.” He added as he finished the tea.

They chatted a bit about what they'd been listening to lately, what bands they thought were going to headline next year's festivals, before eventually the interview picked up again. “We're here with Matty of The 1975, and just before we heard their song Girls. Now, Matty,” She leaned forward, and for a moment the look in her eyes made him feel like he was in for another hectic question. “I heard a lot of controversy about the video clip for that song being in colour.”

He couldn't stop himself from chuckling. “Yeah... But it wasn't our first video in colour!” He said defensively. “When we put out the album version for Sex, that came from the idea that everything got so big so quickly, but we still wanted the album version out there before the album came out, you know, to impose our identity and say this is who we are. With that we did a new video for it and it was in colour, it was the first video in colour and everyone went _mental_. We were made aware that a lot of kids were saying stuff that we were ‘conforming to a major label’ you know, the whole cliché’d band getting too big.” He waved his hand dismissively. “And we got obsessed by that idea because it’s… so _not_ true. It’s so ridiculous. And we wanted to make a video about that – _about_ conforming to a major label. Because music videos are silly, we wanted to make a tongue in cheek video. We just wanted to make a pop video that was really _aware_ it was a pop video. We knew it was obviously gonna split people down the middle but… whatever…” He finished with a shrug. “It was funny.”

“I agree, I thought it was pretty funny.” She replied with a smile. “What do you hope people are getting out of the album now that it's out there for them to listen to?”

“I can only hope that they react in the same way that I do. Because I can only make music for me. Therefore I can only expect people who are likeminded to embrace it in the same way that I do. When we finished Robbers, I cried my heart out. When we finished Settle Down, we went on a night out on the Friday, and it was like five in the morning and I made the engineer steal the keys to the studio and we went back and broke in to listen to the record all the way through. If a song doesn’t make me laugh through joy, or it doesn’t make me dance, or it doesn’t make me cry, or it doesn’t provoke me to be really introspective, then we just fuck it off. Just leave it.” He answered, before quickly trying to summarise himself. “I want our music to make people think about their own life more than our music.”

“That makes sense. The best music always reminds you of specific moments and people in your life.”

“Exactly.” He grinned.

“I heard rumblings that you're already working on the next album?” She asked, watching as he nodded a bit. “I suppose I shouldn't have expected any less given how little time off you allow yourself.”

He let out a laugh, “Yeah, you'd be right. Although, we've had this one ready to go for nearly a year and had some material leftover from it that didn't quite fit in, as well. The new album sounds mental already… it’s very... weird…” He frowned down at the desk as he played the tracks through in his head. “I can’t really tell you what it sounds like. I think it’ll probably be closer to the EPs. We’re so confused now about our lives, that I think this record will be a genuine representation of our confusion in different cultures and different cities and different mindsets.” He explained. “But who cares? We’re only making it because we wanna make it.”

“And from what you've said, song-writing is a big part of your expression.” She prompted.

“One hundred percent. I can’t have a record that is so self-deprecating and self-aware and then be interviewed and not have that translate in the way that I am. Because this band is a genuine extension of my identity, all of the music is me trying to figure myself out lyrically.”

“Has that process taught you much?” She questioned.

“Yeah. It's helped me get my head straight about a lot of stuff. But mainly I’ve really learned that I have a creative responsibility. I used to think I didn’t have any responsibilities when it came to my art, because it was mine. But I’ve realised that so many people genuinely invest in it. I do have a responsibility for it at least to be as good as whatever preceded it… hopefully better.”

“All right, we're nearly out of time.” She sighed, straightening up in her chair. He threw a disappointed look her way, forcing a smile out of her. “But before we call it, last time we spoke was right before Reading and Leeds. How was it?” She asked.

He let out a bewildered sound before speaking, “Reading and Leeds was like a culmination of everything that has happened. It was _amazing_.” He started with a faraway look in his eyes. “We went to that festival – it was the first festival we ever went to as a band. Just to watch. You don’t expect more people to come and see you over the course of one festival period, because it seems too fast. But we were definitely pulling much bigger crowds by the end of the Summer, it was mental.” He said as he shook his head in disbelief.

“I told you that you guys would be really hard to get a hold of in the future.” She reminded him. “We've had Matthew Healy of The 1975 on the show with us discussing their latest self-titled album. It's out now in stores. Go do yourselves a favour and give it a listen. Thanks, as always, for chatting, Matty.” She said with a sharp nod.

“Always a pleasure.” He said with a grin.

By now, she was expecting him to hang around as she talked through her outro and switched back to the music. He stood up and walked around from his side of the desk, leaning against the wall as she faced him.

“So, where are you off to now?” She asked as she pulled her headset off and placed it on the desk. “Gonna go fill up your free time with overworking yourself more?” She added with a playful smile.

He scoffed, “We don’t get free time. When we do have free time, it’s in London, where we don’t live, when we’re in a hotel, and you have one day off which you do your washing in.” He answered as he rolled his eyes. “But, I assume that you _do_ live near London?”

“Around these parts, yes.” She said vaguely. “Why?”

“We're stuck up here for a couple of days, if you wanted to get a drink or anything.” He suggested with a casual shrug.

“I appreciate the offer, but stand by what I said before.” She started. “It's easier to keep work separate. I've seen it get messy for colleagues.” She elaborated.

He nodded in understanding. “All right, well...” He let out the breath he was holding. “You have my number.” She watched him walk out of the studio as she tried to get her heart rate back under control.

* * *

She probably should've known better than to go out that night knowing that Matty was around London. But her friends had invited her out for a drink, and it was Thursday, it was close enough to the end of the week. _And_ most importantly she felt like she _needed_ a drink after being in such close confinement with that man. Thankfully, her professionalism was easy enough to maintain at work (despite his best attempts at flirting). However, when she was faced with the dilemma of George and Matty walking into the bar they'd been in for the last couple of hours, after she'd already had a few drinks, the lines between work and social life were suddenly a lot less obvious. She shrank back down into her seat slightly, hoping that he wouldn't notice she was here and she wouldn't have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling in her chest. But it was too late. George noticed her and instantly pointed her out to his mate. _Fuck sake, George_. Matty flashed her a friendly wave, which she returned anxiously. At least he didn't walk over. He and George walked across to the other side of the bar and started playing pool.

She mentally checked out of her friend's conversation after that - finding it too hard to _not_ focus on Matty when he was in the room. The magnetism he radiated was annoyingly undeniable. She nodded occasionally and made approving noises here and there when there was a pause in the conversation for a response. But eventually she was dragged back to reality and actually had to give a response when she heard one of her friends calling her name. She looked over to them with her eyebrows raised, asking them to repeat the question.

“I _said_ ,” They laughed before repeating themselves, “we’re going to grab some food down the road. Are you coming?”

“Uh…” She mumbled, suddenly meeting Matty's gaze across the room. “No. I’m not hungry.” She shook her head. “Might hang around here for a bit.”

“Suit yourself.”

Her friends grabbed their things, promptly leaving the bar and thus leaving her to her own devices. She briefly considered that staying here might be a bad idea, but that thought was quickly squashed by the smile Matty threw her way. “Fancy seeing you here.” He grinned as she walked over to where he and George were standing.

“Should've known you'd find me somehow or another.” She said in amusement as she watched George sink one of the smalls.

“Hey, don't blame me.” He held up his hands in defence. “This bar was his idea. Right, George?” He asked as he turned back to the table.

“He's right.” The drummer nodded.

“We just wanted to get out of the hotel for a bit.” He explained with a look of innocence. “You wanna get in on the next game?” He added, suddenly looking eager.

“Sure.” She shrugged as she pulled a barstool over and took a seat.

As she watched them play out their game, she noticed that George was a much better player than Matty was. “You don't seem to be very good at this.” She noted as Matty missed another shot.

“It's still our first game. I need to warm up.” He replied as he rolled his shoulders.

She hummed thoughtfully, “I dunno, George is kicking your arse.”

“George, tell her that I'm not _that_ bad at pool.” He said with a frown.

He shook his head, “I’m not getting involved. This is between you two.”

“I'll show you.” He grumbled under his breath as he took a sip from his beer. “Next game. You and me.” He said with a nod.

“You're on.”

The game took a little longer to finish up than what she had initially expected as Matty tried to hone his skills. She ended up excusing herself to get another drink right before George sunk the last shot.

“Good game, Matt.” He said as he cracked his back. “I'm gonna head back to the hotel. You coming?” He asked as he nudged the singer in the ribs.

Matty eyed the girl standing at the bar. “Nah, I'm gonna stay for a bit.” He answered.

“All right. Don't kick on too late.” He said as he clapped a hand down on his friend's shoulder. “Remember, we've got a show tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah. I won't.” He said as he brushed off George's hand. Matty racked up the balls and set up the table again as she came over with her drink.

“Where's George?” She asked, quickly looking around.

“Went back to the hotel.” He answered abruptly.

“Oh.” Was all she could muster in response. No longer having the buffer of someone else suddenly made this situation feel quite... different.

“I've got a wager for you to prove I'm not as bad at this as you think.” He said as he held out the pool cue to her. She raised an eyebrow in question. “If you can beat me in a game, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“And if I _don’t_ beat you?” She questioned with a sceptical look.

“Then you’ll have to buy your own drink to have with me.” He shot back, holding her gaze. He offered out his hand and waited for her to shake on the bet. After a moment of weighing up her options, she shook his hand firmly. “You break.”

For a man who wanted to make a bet on his skills, they hadn't really seemed to have improved any since the last game. After about ten minutes of playing, he had only sunk one ball in comparison to her four. It seemed that he was practically handing out free shots.

“I feel like you’re losing on purpose.” She accused eventually.

“What gives you that impression?” He asked as he shot the cue ball directly in between every possible ball he could’ve hit.

“What were you even aiming for just then?” She huffed with a laugh.

“I was trying to do a bounce shot off the cushion into the five.” He lied as he took a drink. “Your shot.” He handed the cue back to her.

She looked back at the table, seeing that the five was nowhere near where he ended up. “ _Sure_.” 

“So...” He started, leaning back against the table. “I thought you said earlier that you like to 'keep work separate'?” He asked casually as he busied himself looking at his fingernails.

“What a good thing neither of us are working right now, then.” She muttered as she sank another ball.

“Hmm, seems that way.”

“And I didn't exactly intend to hang out with you this evening.” She added, taking her second shot and holding the cue out to him. “It's not my fault you invaded my Thursday night.”

“You say that like you're not having a good time.” He frowned as he took it back.

“I wouldn't be here if I wasn't having a good time.” She answered honestly. As soon as he heard that, he sank his final shot. He watched as the eight went straight into the corner pocket. “You… you just lost the game?” She asked in confusion.

“What a shame.” He sighed. “I guess I owe you a drink.” He said with a shrug as he brushed past her and walked to the bar. She should probably feel a bit more confronted about the fact that he'd just lost that game to spend time with her, but her brain was too clouded with the knowledge that _he'd just lost that game to spend time with her._

They continued playing pool as Matty brought over the next round, and for some _sudden_ reason, they seemed to be a lot more evenly matched. It was unquestionable how easily the conversation flowed between them, and it was also pretty easy to see the chemistry quickly forming.

“I'm not as good with girls as people think I am.” He debated as he took his shot, after hearing her prattle on about how much women fussed over him on the internet.

“You don't _need_ to be good with girls at this point.” She said as she rolled her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think you realise how many people want to date you, Matty.” She laughed. “I mean, you’ve got a queue longer than the one to get into Glastonbury.” He couldn't help but join in with her laughter at the reference.

“That doesn't mean anything if I'm not attracting the right people.” He pointed out.

“What sort of people are you aiming to attract?” She asked in an attempt at nonchalance, intentionally looking away from him to hide her nerves.

“Someone like minded. Other musicians, people in the industry,” He paused, waiting until he had her attention before he finished his sentence, “cute radio presenters. That sort of thing.” 

As her brain ticked into overdrive at this, she heard the bartender call out for anyone wanting last drinks. It was getting late. “I really need to be getting back home.” She groaned.

“Ah, but the bar doesn't close for another hour!” Matty protested.

“I've got work tomorrow.” She said, shaking her head. “And you,” She punctuated her sentence by jabbing him in the shoulder. “have a show.” He gently took her hand in his, using it as an excuse to pull her closer to him.

“I've done worse than play a show while I'm tired.” He argued, trying to convince her to stay a little longer.

“Well, I have a level of professionalism to uphold.” She smiled back at him. “When are you back in London next?”

He thought about this for a moment, “January.”

“That's forever away.” She said with a frown.

“Good thing you've got my number then.” She nodded slightly, suddenly finding herself losing her voice when she noticed his expression shift. He leaned in closer, and before she'd really had time to properly process it or kiss him back, he'd already moved away. “Keep in touch, love.” He grinned.


	4. That's All I Have to Say

** 8th of October, 2015 **

Despite their best attempts to stay in touch, eventually busy schedules got the better of the both of them. They’d texted a bit initially after their night at the bar, but as soon as Matty was on tour, time differences made it difficult to keep up any form of routine. However, she knew that he’d be back in London soon enough. Surely _that_ would be their time to catch up. She reached out to him in January when she knew he was back, hoping for the best, but his schedule was too packed between press for the album, shows and trying to see family and friends that he was obligated to catch up with whenever he was at home. So, she dropped it. And eventually, communication stopped. Her career started escalating at a much quicker pace than what it had before. The two guys who ran the usual morning peak hour shift went on to do their own thing, which left the prime-time slot open for application. She had considered applying, but before she’d even filled out the forms the station asked her directly if she wanted the position. They’d seen how much of a positive reaction she was getting on her show, it would make sense for her to fill that spot. Of course, she took it - it would be insane not to. The pay was much the same as what she was already on, but the chances for bigger and better shows at that hour were endless.

Matty was also on his own rollercoaster of a career. The 1975 was only getting more and more popular as their debut album began reaching all corners of the planet. What they had expected wasn’t going to go much further than their circle of close friends, was suddenly spreading to places they couldn’t have even dreamed. They toured and interviewed and did meet and greets _non-stop_ to try and keep the hype going. It wasn’t until they started properly discussing a second album release that Matty finally had to stop for a moment and take a (small) breather. He needed the time to work out what he wanted their next step to be. Once the band had the majority of the album planned out, and a few songs properly sorted, they figured it was time to start releasing some material. And in an incredibly convenient turn of events, they found themselves back at home while they were looking for a way to debut their lead track. So, what better way to get their new material out there than to broadcast it live across national radio? Of course, Matty had been pretty quick to suggest where they should do that.

It had been over two years since he’d last been on her show. Both of them were acutely aware of that as he knocked on the glass door the morning of the interview. She hadn’t been keeping up with the band’s trajectory as much as what she had in the past, mainly for simply not having the time to. Which meant that his new look came as a slight surprise. His hair looked like he’d been letting it grow out much longer than what she’d seen on him previously. He was currently trying to tame this mop of unruly curls by having them tied back in a bun. His jeans had a big enough chunk of denim missing from them that she would’ve thought they’d deserve to be discounted for how much fabric was missing. He was wearing a floral button-up shirt, but she suspected that the buttons clearly didn’t get much use for how few of them he had done up now, his chest tattoo almost on full display. And this seemed to be in contradiction to the obscenely heavy woollen coat that was over the top of it. As he pulled her in for a tight hug, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of stale cigarettes and wine. She hesitantly hugged him back, hoping that the scent wouldn’t linger on her own clothes.

“What’s with the shades?” She asked as he moved back, eyeing the sunglasses still perched on the bridge of his nose. It made sense for him to wear them on his way here, but she wasn’t sure if he was aware that he was still wearing them inside the studio.

“Hungover.” He answered with a shrug. She just nodded, supposing that it _was_ a Saturday, it would make sense for him to have been out last night.

“I can’t believe it’s been over two years!” He said as he plopped himself down across from her, setting an opaque water bottle down on the desk.

“Yeah, I think we’ve both been pretty busy.” She nodded in agreement.

“Told you that you’d get bumped up to a peak hour slot eventually.” He grinned. His smile forced an uncomfortable flutter through her chest, but she couldn’t deny that she was incredibly proud of that accomplishment.

“You did.” She smiled back. “The early mornings have been a rough routine to get into, but it’s been nice having new goals to work towards.” She nodded, thinking back for a second on all the things she’d manage to accomplish in the short time she’d been in her new role. “I’m sure you’ve got many stories of your own.”

He chuckled lightly, “Yeah, a few.” He scratched at the back of his neck as he glanced down at the table. “I’ll save them for the interview.” 

Now that she had a more structured show, she had a bit more of a routine to adhere to with her interviews. Which definitely made things a lot easier. It meant that she didn’t have to wing it as much knowing each interview would have the same intros. “So, you guys played two shows at Alexandra Palace this week-” She started as the intros finished up, before Matty cut her off.

“Yeah, we’ve been in London for the last week or so for those shows.” He confirmed.

“Oh.” She said, suddenly finding a million thoughts running through her head. He’d been in London for a week already and he’d not tried to catch up? She knew he was a busy guy but a week was a long time to be stuck in a part of the country that wasn’t where you actually lived. Trying to ignore the pang of hurt in her chest, she continued, “Are you keeping busy?”

“Just trying to keep writing and recording for the new album, seeing my girlfriend when I can.” He said with a nod. Ah. _Girlfriend_. Suddenly not trying to get in touch made a lot more sense.

She cleared her throat before continuing, “How’s that going?” Things already felt like they didn’t flow as well as what they had the last time that they saw each other. Too much time had passed to just pick up and act like nothing had happened in that gap. She felt almost like she was back at square one, meeting this man for the first time.

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He shot back. She frowned in response. “I’m sorry, I just… don’t like discussing that stuff in interviews. Relationship problems shouldn’t be hashed out through headlines.” He explained.

There was a pause as she tried to catch up to the path his brain had decided to take, rather than what she had intended. “I meant the album.” She corrected him.

“Ah, yeah! That’s going well.” He laughed. “We’ve been getting heaps of material recorded while we’ve been up here.”

“When will it be out?”

He hummed thoughtfully as he pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, “In about six months, I reckon. We’re thinking sometime around February.”

“That’s not too far away. I’ve heard the album described as ‘a bunch of eclectic sounds’, do you think that’s an accurate way to define it?” She questioned.

“We didn’t know what to do after the first album. I think that we made a decision that we just wanted to be truly expressive and for it to be in pursuit of the truth. That’s why the album is called I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful, Yet So Unaware Of It, because we were scared about making a new record. And I thought ‘you know what? I’m gonna – it’s just about making decisions. About making _bold_ decisions.’ “ He had a look of conviction as he said this, “The record is kind of comprised of that attitude. It was called that before we’d even written any of it.”

“That’s a very dramatic album title.” She pointed out.

“Well… we’re very dramatic boys.” He said with a grin.

“It’s definitely going to be a mouthful for anyone asking about it.”

“It was just something I said to a girlfriend of mine, at the time. It kind of laid the foundations for the bold decisions thing. If it’s called _that_ , then there’s no rules as to what it could be. But it’s subjective, it could be perceived as quite sweet, it could be perceived as quite voyeuristic.” He answered with a shrug.

“If people weren’t aware of you guys before, having an album title like that and making _bold_ _decisions_ ,” She emphasised the words as she quoted him, “is for sure going to get you on the map.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, that does seem to be the direction we’re headed in…” He agreed. “You know, sometimes I think about toning it down, but then I remember who I am and think… _nah_.” He dwelled on this for a moment, before pulling himself back on track. “The first record, the idea of being judged just _wasn’t there_ , because nobody had heard it or was potentially _gonna_ hear it. The preservation of that idea, and the cultivation of it in the face of this knowing of how many people are gonna hear it – that was the most important thing to the record. Writing from the purest place.”

“It’s sounding like it will be very different from your last album.”

“Mmhm.”

“And even from what you’re saying, it sounds like this album, much like the last, will be very different within itself. In light of that, would you say the concept of genre is dead?” She asked, leaning back in her seat as she watched him process his answer.

“Yeah.” He eventually said. “They’ve never really mattered. Genres, I mean. Imagine if you woke up one morning right, and you had your record collection, and the concept of genre just _didn’t exis_ t. The purity of that experience, of listening to music without those rules, it’s like a blissful idea.” He let out a sigh before shaking his head. “I really don’t care, to be honest with you. It’s so irrelevant to me.”

She figured that was as good a time as any to segue into her next line of questioning, “It’s been a while since we had you in the studio. The last time was right after your debut self-titled album came out. But you have released the track Medicine since then.”

“Yep.”

“I feel it’s a very…” She searched for a second for the right word to describe it, “minimalistic track?”

He nodded slightly before speaking, “We wanted it to sound like Velvet Underground produced by Trevor Horn, you know? That was kind of the vibe.” He made a vague hand gesture at this. “But I wouldn’t say it’s very representative of our next record. It’s kind of a return to the sound of our EPs. It was weird with us, because for a lot of people the first thing they heard was the album. But we released that after a year of releasing EPs, which really embedded us in the musical culture we wanted to be in. We kind of came from the left field and moved slightly to the middle. But a lot of people saw us immediately with Chocolate and Girls and misinterpreted the irony of some of the kind of pop elements of that.”

“The 1975 have definitely had their fair share of poppy radio hits.” She concurred.

“Yeah, you guys are playing us non-stop.” He chuckled.

“All of that attention on the airwaves has gotten you a few pretty awesome gigs, too. Have you got a favourite festival that you’ve played across the last few summers?” She asked as he took a swig from his water bottle.

“Glastonbury.” He answered instantly, before feeling the need to elaborate. “Uh, Glastonbury’s kind of… It’s _Glastonbury_. If you’re from the UK it’s kind of _the_ festival.” He said with a pointed look. “And Glastonbury is one of the only festivals where we can walk around, because it’s so enormous. They leave you alone a little bit there. I managed to walk around kind of… freely… But we did like… pfft,” He looked like he was counting in his head for a split second, “three festivals a weekend all summer or something like that. We’ve been everywhere from Finland to Latvia to Singapore.”

“Playing so many shows now, and meeting so many people, are you finding the fans are getting kind of crazy? You guys must nearly be at boyband status in some parts of the world.”

“The shows are very intense. It’s weird because there’s a lot of young… well, you know I don’t mean _young_ ,” He scrunched his face up as he corrected himself, “when I say the main core audience is say sixteen to nineteen. But it’s a lot of young kid’s first shows. So, the first twenty-five minutes of the show is just…” He tried to find the right words, before letting out a laugh, “It’s a shit show. Just people getting pulled out, fighting, passing out… There’s so much fainting.” He answered as he began trying to pluck a hair off the microphone that was stuck to it.

“Well, you guys might be about to cause even more passing out now.” She began, taking a glance at the clock and seeing that it was nearly halfway through their allotted interview time.

“Oh?” He mumbled in confusion.

“Because right now, we are going to give people the first listen of a brand-new track from your upcoming album.” She clarified, mostly for the sake of listeners but it seemed that Matty himself had forgotten the reason he was here.

“Oh! That’s right.”

“You heard right, folks. Coming up _right now_ is going to be the live debut of The 1975’s new track, Love Me. Any final words Matty before it’s out there in the world?” She asked as her finger hovered over the switch to fade their audio out and switch to the music.

He thought for a second. “Nah, not really. Enjoy it, I suppose.”

She switched off the interview track and pressed play on the new song, instantly seeing the text line _overflowing_ with incoming messages from fans. For a second, she tried to read a few, before eventually minimising the window for now to avoid giving herself a headache. Looking back to the man sitting across from her, she had expected him to have been waiting to say something, or for him to have already been halfway through a story, but he was just staring at his phone, his headset still sitting on his head. Considering how hard it seemed to be to get in touch, she felt it would’ve been nice to have at least, you know, _three minutes_ to try and catch up. This suddenly made the fact that he had been in London for a week without dropping a message make more sense, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. Their breaks between songs had previously been filled with light hearted conversation, and now the silence just felt suffocating. Had he really changed that much in two years to not even wanna talk? She let the song play through, then played a few snippets of interview introduction to segue back into them talking before switching the microphones back on.

“You just heard The 1975’s new song, Love Me, for the very first time. A special live debut off their new album for all of you lovely listeners. We had a _lot_ of messages coming in from fans telling us their thoughts.” She spoke, before Matty chimed in.

“What did you think?” He asked as he leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on the desk.

“I liked it.” She answered truthfully.

“Did you listen to it prior to hearing it now?” He asked in curiosity.

“Yeah, I listened when it was emailed to me this morning, in case I happened to miss it this time around.” She nodded. He just let out a noise of appreciation before leaning back into his seat. “You were right, it’s very different to what you’ve done in the past.”

“We’ve made a record where every song sounds different from the other ones. Back to the concept of genre, we don’t listen to just once genre anymore. We consume whatever sounds good. So, we want to create in that same way that we consume. And we just thought that, er, our choices of songs that we put out had to be based on confidence. Bold decisions, as I said before.” He said with a dismissive wave. “I think this first track is... quite bombastic? George said to me once that ‘if we don’t go with it now, when are we going to go with it?’ And he was right. It’s a bit of a big ballsy song.”

“That’s a pretty good way to describe it.” She agreed with a nod. “I’ve heard that there are quite a few songs on this album where, lyrically, you’re exploring a few new concepts? Like ego and sexuality. Can you elaborate on that?” She questioned.

“I think if I elaborated on a lot of stuff, it wouldn’t symbolise things in a certain way. You know, if everything was laid open. Like Medicine isn’t a love song about a girl for example,” He said that offhandedly, but suddenly she found herself thinking on what the song _is_ about, if not that. But he continued talking over her thoughts. “but I don’t talk about those things. I like to let the music speak for itself. Erm… well, yeah. I think the idea of a conflicted sexuality is something loads of people go through. The shared experiences that loads of people go through, the shared fears of humanity like love, death. I don’t think there’s any question for anyone who knows my band that I’m _slightly odd_ in a sexual way.” He made a face as he said this before laughing at himself. “I’m not exactly the most manly man in the world. But there’s just… stuff about sexuality and the superficiality of it and what it really means. But I’m still writing parts of it at the moment. It’s a bit of a weird time doing press right now.”

“You always seem to have a hell of a vocabulary in your lyrics, so I’m sure whatever themes you end up writing about, you’ll end up doing it in some kind of poetic way.” She prompted, but he just continued on his own tangent.

“It’s erm… The whole point of this was…” It looked like he was struggling to find the right words as he adjusted his sunnies. “It goes back to identity, and it goes back to… there’s a lot of stuff on this record, where I’m answering questions from the first album, and I’m making references to the first album. And I’m talking about y’know, being wiser now and more naïve then. And there’s this back and forth between the album that preceded this album and _this_ album that our fans will really, really understand the subtext of.” He said, before figuring he should probably round back to what she had said. “So, I suppose that is kind of poetic, yeah.”

“And you have that knack for imagery and storytelling through you as the main focus of the lyrics that people latch onto.”

“One of the things that I always want people to be aware of, is if I’m talking with a sense of kind of… dissatisfaction about behaviour in my songs? Is that I’m normally talking about _me_. It doesn’t necessarily mean that _I’m_ saying those things. It’s often my reactions to those things being said.” He explained.

“A few more light-hearted questions before we round out this interview.” She said as she stretched her arms above her head. Trying to maintain the same sense of chemistry that had existed in their last interview was taking its toll, she was eager for this to be over. “I’ve seen that there’s a petition going around about you guys.” Matty instantly groaned. “ _Will_ you ever play Antichrist live?” She asked.

He let out a dry laugh. “I like it lyrically, but it _so doesn’t sound like us_.” He huffed, before frowning. “We _might_ play it.” He said eventually.

“I’m sure a lot of fans will be excited to hear that it’s not off the table just yet. Next one, in your travels in the last couple of years, have you met any celebrities that you’ve been starstruck by?”

“Not really… There’s been a few, but nobody I’ve been _properly_ starstruck by.” The gears were visibly turning in his head as you could see him running through people in his mind. “I wanna meet Miley Cyrus…” He said under his breath, before looking across the desk to her. “I wanna meet her so much. Why’ve I not met her yet? I’ve met loads of people in that world that I’m not that impressed with.”

“One last question that I saw come up on the text line, if you had a biography written about yourself, what would you title it?”

“FUCKING LEGEND.” He shouted without a second thought. Eventually, once he stopped laughing, he considered the question seriously. “What would I call it..? Probably something to do with my hair. The only thing people care about is my fuckin’ hair.” He resigned as he absentmindedly brought his hand up to said hair.

“That’s all we’ve got time for, Matty.” She said as she let out a relieved breath.

“Aw, shame.” He pouted.

“I’m sure you’ll be off to your next great adventure in no time.” She assured him, putting on the interview charisma. “But for now, it was lovely to have you on.”

“Always great to be on.” He beamed.

“All the best with recording the new album.”

“I’m sure we’ll be back out here soon.” He said with a nod, but given their track record she had a feeling that he didn’t mean that.

“That was Matthew Healy of The 1975, on the show here this morning to debut their new song Love Me off their upcoming album, I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful, Yet So Unaware Of It.” As she spoke, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Matty began getting up and gathering his things. “We’ll be playing it for you again in the next hour, so keep listening out if you want that replay.” She said as she queued up the next set of tracks and faded her audio out.

Once she had taken her headset off, Matty came around to her side of the desk. He didn’t seem to dawdle as much this time waiting for her to be free to speak to him, but he also didn’t seem entirely at ease as he tried to casually sit against it. “Come out for a drink with me.” He suggested as he stole a glance at her over the rim of his sunglasses.

The abrupt offer caught her off guard and she had to think for a moment about what to say. “It’s mid-morning?” She asked in confusion. “And I’m at work?”

“After that.” He shrugged casually.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” She questioned, suddenly finding herself feeling like she knew less and less about _this_ Matty the more he spoke today.

“What does that have to do with anything?” He asked with a frown.

That was the final straw. He’d done more than enough in the half-hour he’d been here to make her grateful that they hadn’t stayed in touch. “Look, I know you’re an attractive guy and all but that doesn’t mean you can just get away with whatever you want.” She shot back.

He suddenly had a look of surprise on his face as he tried to backpedal, “Hang on, that’s not-“

“And I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression before.” She added.

“That isn’t-“

“The interview’s over. I think you should get going.” She said finally, watching as his face fell. She expected him to look angry or defiant, to want to argue the point, but instead he just seemed… disappointed?

“Yeah... Sounds like I should.” He mumbled as he left the studio.


	5. What Does it Matter if I Lie to You?

** 6th of March, 2016 **

The album had been… an enlightening experience for her to listen to when it had come out. It confirmed a lot of her suspicions about the sort of person Matty had been becoming in the time that they had spent apart. There were clearly still a few remnants of the man she knew in there, but a lot of the phrases he’d used within his lyrics on The 1975’s sophomore album made her wary of getting close to him again. It was almost as soon as she had finished her first listen of the album that her boss emailed her asking her to get Matty back on the show for an interview. She had agreed, on the condition that they asked the rest of the band to join him. After how their last interview played out, she didn’t really want to be one on one with him again - that buffer of other people would help try and cover up some of the awkward atmosphere that had left the studio tense the last time they’d spoke. And now that her show was growing in popularity, they had decided to start filming her interviews. Which meant that she would need to try extra hard to keep things civil both in her tones and in her expressions. In the end, they had only been able to get George to come with him, but that was okay, it was still at least someone else to prevent her being cooped up alone with him in the studio for half an hour.

Matty and George had arrived exactly on time for the interview, but certainly Matty seemed like he hadn’t wanted to. He pushed his way into the studio and took a seat without saying a word while George went through the pleasantries and hellos. The singer’s hair was cut a bit shorter now than what it was last time, but was still sticking out wildly in all directions. He still had the smell of smoke and alcohol clinging to him which wafted through the room as he entered, and he seemed skinnier than what he had five months ago. His face was littered with stubble, which was the first time she’d not seem him clean shaven, and the dark circles under his eyes gave the impression he’d not been getting much in the way of sleep lately. He was also wearing some ridiculous looking leather jacket with a fringe along the sleeves. George meanwhile looked much the same as what he had the last time they’d seen each other at the bar. To be fair on their near late-ness, she was grateful that they hadn’t arrived early. It meant that she didn’t have to try and kill time with them before they could get underway.

After the introduction tracks played out and the cameras were good to go, she began her usual introductions. “We have here in the studio half of The 1975, Matthew Healy and George Daniel, to discuss their latest album with us which was released last week.”

“Nice to be back.” George smiled.

“I’m all yours for the next half hour.” Matty nodded. “Many women would pay a small fortune for that privilege.” He added under his breath, forcing a snort of a laugh out of his mate.

She decided to pretend she hadn’t heard him, “How are you guys?” She asked.

“Yeah, doing well.” The drummer answered.

“Fine.” Matty shrugged. “It’s my birthday in uh… about a month.”

“Turning twenty-seven.” George said with a grin as he nudged him enthusiastically.

“Mmmm… twenty-seven club.” He mumbled with a pointed look. 

She figured it was best to instantly segue away from _that_ line of questioning, electing to jump into a lighter topic, “This is the first video on our station Youtube channel!” She said, spinning around in her seat to take a glance at all of the cameras across the room.

“The first?” George asked with an excited look.

“I’ve been tricked into this.” Matty deadpanned as he stared directly into one of the cameras.

“I’m sure you’ll be our first subscriber, Matty.”

“I don’t –“ The suggestion seemed to have caught him off guard. “I don’t have a Youtube channel.” He admitted. “Am I selling your Youtube channel now? Is this the first video?” He asked, clearly having not been listening.

“Yeah, it’s the launch video.” She confirmed.

“It’s not very good at all, then.” He scoffed.

“It’s only as good as you make it, Matty.” She shot back with a sweet smile.

“So, you’re in the middle of playing five shows at the O2 Academy.” The two of them nodded. “The album is out, it debuted number one on the Billboard 200, it’s awesome.” She rattled off. It wasn’t entirely a lie, despite her issues with the band’s frontman, the album itself was enjoyable to listen to and was deserving of its number one spot.

“Thank you.” Matty said apathetically.

“It’s my favourite record this year.” But _that_ was more of a lie.

“That’s amazing.” He added in a monotone voice, throwing a knowing look her way that they were only just over two months into the year.

“What can you tell us about it? How has the process been getting it out there?” She asked as she took a drink of coffee while waiting for their response.

George seemed to be waiting for Matty to say something, before he eventually realised that it was going to be him answering the question, “We really shut ourselves away from the world when we made this album. We disconnected the doorbell from the studio, we were being _that_ reclusive-” 

“When you approach a second album, you’re like ‘well, we’ve got an identity now’ and that conflicts - or appears to conflict - with the purity of making music.” Matty interrupted.

“We had a really hard time creatively because we’ve never had a period in our lives where it was like ‘okay, be creative. Now. Do it, good. Be good at it.’ It’s hard. It’s a hard thing to do.” George tried to pick back up, before, as expected, Matty just took over.

“It kind of captures the narrative of our psyche from the last year and a half.” The singer started, shuffling in his seat to move closer to the microphone. “Like a lot of people who come off a big upward trajectory of success, it… it’s quite a dynamic time. I think that it’s expansive and commanding – it commands your attention. It’s everything, for me, that I’m kind of missing in pop records at the moment.” He answered as he stared blankly at the microphone for a second, before tuning back into reality. “I think that… I just wanted to make something truly representative of a time, something truly post-modern. Something that wasn’t controlled by fear… something that is… an advocate for the idea that there’s no space for democracy in art. You know what I mean? It’s not about anything apart from _our_ pursuit of excellence. And it’s about being a bit pretentious.” That sounded about right. “To kind of propose a seventeen-track album in which all the songs sound different from one another, and it’s an hour and fifteen minutes long, it’s impossible to do that in singles. It’s almost like three or four different albums. If you don’t wanna invest in it, don’t… If you’re not prepared to emotionally invest in it… don’t. There might be a couple of forty-year old’s who find it a bit boring and a bit long, but fuck off. Who cares?” He finished with a frown.

“It sounds like the band has tried to invest in a really honest and sincere process for this album, as opposed to playing to what people wanted out of a second release.” She said, trying to push him along.

“I couldn’t _not_ be honest, because that’s where my music comes from – from the truth of it. It doesn’t come from a dishonest or contrived place, a place of wanting to be cool or wanting to get laid. I started this band when I was thirteen.” He sighed. There was a pause for a moment before he continued, “You know what’s really, really funny? We try and be really inspired by ourselves. The thing that I noticed… especially with the release of the second album, the first album when things started to happen, there was this idea that ‘hey, this might go to number one.’ As soon as that was a tangible idea, that was what we wanted, and it _did_ happen. And I’ve realised retrospectively that that time of us acquiring that number one album was also very much bewed with _me_ – with people knowing who I was, or a desire to become ‘hello, I’m a popstar’ like ‘know who I am’. I’d kind of gotten over that by the time we got to the second record and we really were making this record and it was just about the _record_. When the second album went to number one, it was a completely different experience, a way more pure experience because _I didn’t really care_. I had to get a point… I mean I care so much about what I do, but I mean commercially, career wise, I had to get over that. So, there was a real purity to the experience about the record just going off and doing its thing.” He said with a wave of his hand.

“It’s quite a long album, as you’ve said. And you’ve covered quite a lot of ground lyrically. Do you have a song that you feel is the most revealing?” She questioned.

“About me?” She gave a nod in response. “Er… The Ballad of Me and My Brain, maybe?” He didn’t sound entirely sure of himself as he said it, but it looked like he wasn’t going to think of a better answer. “Because that’s how I feel most of the time. I think that… ‘cause I think… I don’t know.” His thoughts seemed all over the place today. “I think that song’s quite intense in its intention, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s quite funny at times. I think that sums me up quite well.” He said with a chuckle.

“What about a song that got you in the most trouble? There’s some quite personal sounding sentiments.”

Matty instantly let out a groan of dissatisfaction, “People just assume that every single line is a deeply personal thing, a lot of is…” He scrunched his eyes shut as he tried to phrase himself properly. “A lot of those things are just ideas. Like Change of Heart for example, I got a phone call off my ex-girlfriend just going fucking nuts, saying ‘how dare you say those kinds of things!’ She’d just basically joined the dots, she’d just taken that and thought ‘well _that_ means _that,_ and _that_ means _that_ ’ and if you’ve got loads of subtext of like a _relationship_ , you’re gonna do that.” He said with a shrug. “And I kind of had to be like… it wasn’t really about you, sorry.”

“Do you find yourself regretting the things that you say in lyrics?” She asked, watching as he picked as a loose thread in his jeans. “Or in interviews?” She added. _That_ caught his attention. He looked up from his jeans, holding her gaze for a few moments before answering. A part of her wished she could’ve known what was going through his head as the gears were turning.

“Yeah, sometimes.” He nodded, seemingly quite sincere about his answer. “Normally when it’s surrounding something – normally if I’ve spoken my mind on something that doesn’t really matter, or is superficial, or maybe I should’ve just shut up about.” He gave a short laugh. “But I’m not gonna shy away from important things. It’s difficult, man.” He said with a sigh as he ran a hand through his hair. “Because you’ve got all these people, all these followers - which is a funny word as well because it provokes this sense of _leadership_ \- and it’s difficult to be like a popstar and not have people think that like you’re tryna educate the world. I feel a duty to stand up against ideas that promote inequality, because I don’t agree with it. People should be able to talk about what… how they feel, you know what I mean?”

“While we’re on the note of the singles off the album, I heard that The Sound was actually a piece that you guys had originally written for the first album, but didn’t use?” She asked.

“Yeah, it’s been kicking around for a bit.” George answered. “I think it was… the chorus was written a long time ago, and it’s such an in your face song. We’ve always spoken about not having any fear about being a pop band-”

Matty suddenly decided to chime in and speak over him, “At the time that song was so poppy we were a bit scared of it. We didn’t have the confidence on the first album to pull it off.”

George waited for him to continue that train of thought, but he didn’t. So, he instead continued what he was saying. “But then we started making I Like It When You Sleep and it was so eclectic that it was kind of the perfect context for that song. And then once we did it, we were kind of like, whoa… maybe this is our biggest song?”

“It definitely seems like it might be now.” She agreed. “I’ve had a lot of requests for it.”

“Are the rumours true in that you nearly gave The Sound to One Direction?”

George instantly started laughing while Matty rolled his eyes. “I didn’t nearly _give it to them_.” Matty started, “Well… I suppose I did…” He frowned as he thought about it. “Fucking hell… Imagine if I did!” He whacked George on the arm for emphasis. “Oh, god… Can you imagine? They wouldn’t have liked it.” He shook his head, before realising he was meant to be answering a question. “What happened with that was, I got a phone call saying One Direction want you to write a tune for them and I was like ‘fucking get it!’ cause, you know” He made a cash gesture towards the camera, “And I think it’s very distasteful when artists talk about money, but _come on_. Erm, so I went in there, really nice lads, they were really nice, and um… I was like fuckin’ hell, I don’t know what I’m doing, because I’m not the kind of artist who just walks in and goes ‘right, let’s just figure something out’ that’s not what I do. So, I just started playing them demos of stuff that I had. I was like… ‘what’re you doing? This is like your next album!’ But I was like fuck it. But I think The Sound I played them, and they were like ‘that’s quite good’ but then they played me a song – what had happened is, they’d already written a song that sounded like The 1975 and they’d got me in to pretty much go ‘yeah, go on then, use that’ which I didn’t. They used it anyway, but they’re One Direction, whatever they’ll do that.” He huffed.

“There’s quite a few ambient instrumental moments on the album, such as Please Be Naked.” She said, watching as the two of them nodded in agreement. “Was there any reason for the choice in title?”

“It’s instrumental, so it just needed a nice set of words, really.” George said.

“It was something that was just written down in my phone.” Matty admitted. “It wasn’t all that poetic.”

“I think everyone was expecting an overly sexualised RnB song when they see the title, and it’s really not that.” The drummer chuckled.

“It was originally called London, because if you listen to it in headphones you can’t differentiate between the cars in the song and the cars driving past.” Matty explained. “And I really like that, because I wanted to make a song that was about walking back to my flat in London. So, maybe it was about you.” He grinned as he shoved George’s shoulder affectionately.

“That seems like a good spot to put on some tracks from the album.” She said as she flicked her gaze back to her monitor. “We’ll be back after these few songs.”

Things were going better than she had expected them to. Having George there was definitely helping keep the mood light, especially for the sake of the cameras. And she had a feeling that he was providing a decent grounding element for Matty as well, who seemed more and more distracted and off-topic by the minute. He was always a fidgety guy, but now he just seemed distant. Something about his demeanour just seemed… off? She had expected the arrogance and ego from the last interview, but he looked out of sorts today, like his brain was all over the place as he tried to decipher his thoughts. However, as she watched him laughing with George while the songs played, it was hard to work out exactly what might be the cause. Maybe she should’ve tried harder to ask him about it the last time that she had seen him one on one. Though, she also didn’t feel overly compelled to be invested in his personal life anymore. Thankfully, having George there for him to talk to in the short break meant that she wasn’t stressing out about whether he was - or more accurately lately, _wasn’t_ \- talking to her. This was why she always kept work at work, it meant that she didn’t have to overthink interviews like this.

“That was The Sound and Change of Heart from The 1975’s second album, I Like It When You Sleep, which was released a little over a week ago. And if you missed the first half, we do have George and Matty from The 1975 here with us this morning.” She said, doing her little ingrained spiel before jumping into the next question. “Now, for such a large album from such a popular band, it’s a big surprising to see that you guys are yet to do any collaborations. Is there a reason behind that?” She asked.

“At the risk of sounding pretentious, the way you sum it up is…” Matty said, taking a measured breath before continuing, “making these records isn’t something that I _do_ , it’s something that I _am_. It would be like somebody else trying to write your diary, like fuck off.” He scoffed. “I don’t like it. I like the _idea_ of it, then when I’m presented with it, I get a bit like ‘nah’.”

“That makes sense.” She concurred.

“It’s hard to let people in on something that’s been such a personal endeavour for so long for us.” George elaborated.

“And the colour scheme for the new album, it’s very neon and pink. Quite a stark change from the black and white.” She prompted.

“Well, that’s partially to do with the fans. We noticed that they started colouring all of our old black and white photos pink.” Matty shrugged. “But it’s the opposite of the black and white and went with how the album sounded.”

“What’re you guys going to be doing now? The album is out, back onto another tour? Or something else?”

Matty sighed deeply, “I struggle at the moment because I’ve stepped away from my phone. What I’ve realised is, right, when I’ve put the phone down – and I’m not saying I’ve quit social media or whatever,” He said with a sarcastic look, like he was trying to imitate the people who think they’re better than everyone else for not having an Instagram account, “because if I feel the need to say something I go in and say it – what I’ve realised is, is I’ve actually got interests again. There’s things I’m interested in and things I’m not interested in, as opposed to just being vaguely interested in everything. Because when I’ve got my phone, I’ll just like… _look_. I think that we live in a world now where… it’s just a big forum, isn’t it? It’s the way you validate experiences, by sharing them. That’s just how we communicate now. I don’t know… I feel a bit like… I’ve spent most of 2016 being quite scared. Like actually scared of stuff,”

As she was trying to listen to him speak, she kept hearing something crackling through her headset like quiet feedback or rustling. She checked the audio tracks and everything seemed as it should. Eventually she looked over to the man across from her to see him rubbing at his jacket sleeve like it was irritating him. He continued to absentmindedly do it, right in front of his microphone. She kicked his shin under the table, causing him to stop mid-sentence and frown at her. Looking down pointedly at his hand on his sleeve before looking back at him, she just mouthed the words: _stop it_. He removed his hand from his arm with a huff before trying to get himself back on track. “Erm… yeah… I try to remind people that superficial things, like music concerts, things like that, regardless of how they’re normally, er, regarded… they’re quite important, at times like this. Loads of people in a room for a likeminded reason, for a positive reason, that’s a good thing. Now more than ever. That’s kind of how I justify it. Every single day there’s something horrendous, which kind of makes you think ‘well what’s the point of being in a pop band’ but then I remember it’s kind of to give people a release from all that.” He finished as he zoned out staring at his hands sitting on the desk.

She had a distinct feeling that he hadn’t answered that question _at all_ , and decided perhaps it would be better to ask the other member of the band. “And you, George? What’s next on your agenda? Are you also going to go off grid?” She asked as George just laughed.

“Well, we’ll probably be back on tour soon once we’ve finished off these shows at home.” He said, deciding to answer what she had originally asked.

“You guys seem to be on tour all the time, how do you keep yourselves busy being on the road for that long? I’ve heard a lot of bands when stuck in confined spaces end up pulling a lot of pranks.”

“We do… do that, yeah.” Matty nodded, seeming unfocused on the interview at hand. His eyes kept glancing to the glass door of the recording booth, like he was waiting for someone to appear, or waiting to make a quick exit.

“We do that a lot.” George corrected, pulling his friend back into the moment.

“Normally when we’re on a tour bus, it’ll normally consist of doing something to somebody’s bunk. So, we’ll either get all of the fruit from every dressing room and we’ll put that in the bunk, and that’s called a ‘fruit salad.’ Or we’ll do a ‘fountain of youth’ which is where you get all of the water… and I mean you _really_ fill it up. There’s also one called a ‘crime scene’ where you get sellotape and you sellotape someone into their bunk.” Matty explained with a laugh.

“We’re nearly out of time guys,” She spoke, watching George glance down at his watch. She knew that it was probably a few minutes too early to end the interview, but she was running out of questions worth asking and she knew it would be better to cut it short than to drag it out and have it feel forced. “but how do you top something like this? Where do you see the next album going?” She questioned.

“I dunno… I think that, you know… it’s always good to think that you could be like Radiohead, where every album was a distillation of the album that preceded it. They take everything that was great from what they did before and they kind of reinvent themselves but kind of do it again at the same time. I think it always needs to be about reinvention, and then the fear of alienation is always gonna be there.” Matty tried to explain. He had a faraway look for a moment before saying into his microphone with a look of conviction, “I think the only way we could stay relevant it to reinvent ourselves.”

“But you’re working on new music already, correct?” She asked

“Yeah.” George confirmed.

“We have a particular project we’re very heavily involved in at the moment which is gonna be a live show later in the year, and I’ve been writing music videos and stuff, but we’re always working on new music.” The singer nodded.

She began her outro, turning the camera feed off and watching as the two boys began getting ready to leave. Despite deciding that she didn’t want to be involved with Matty, she also couldn’t just drop the feeling she had sitting in the pit of her stomach that something wasn’t right. As she watched them begin to leave the room, she quickly rushed out the end of her spiel and switched onto the music tracks. She caught Matty’s wrist as he went to leave, forcing him to look at her.

“Are you doing okay?” She asked sincerely.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” He shrugged.

“You just…” She frowned up at him, trying to think of a way to explain the vibe she had from him. “You don’t really seem yourself.” She eventually settled on.

“Why do you care?” He shot back. She didn’t have an answer for that. A part of her expected to feel hurt at the confirmation of the rift between them, but she suddenly just felt dumb for even asking when she should’ve known that he wouldn’t confide in her. Why would he? They hadn’t properly spoken in nearly three years now. He pulled his wrist out of her grip before pushing open the door and leaving without another word. George threw an apologetic look her way, before following Matty out the door.


	6. Why Can't We Be Friends?

** 26th of November, 2018 **

Eventually, she saw it all unfold in the headlines. The lies. The heroin. The trip to rehab. It was devastating to discover the root cause of Matty’s behaviour in such a disconnected way from how she might’ve expected to discover it a few years ago. A part of her wanted to reach out, to check in and see if he was doing all right, offer to help, but she suspected after their last two interactions that maybe she was better off just leaving it. However, in contrast to the sinking feeling from knowing he had been going through such turmoil, it was incredibly uplifting to see him getting back on his feet. For him to be writing and releasing music again meant that he must’ve successfully made it to the other side. Whenever the announcement of a new album came, she waited in anticipation for the email confirming that he’d be coming back on the show. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was excited at the thought of seeing him again, or absolutely dreading the prospect of things still being uncomfortable between them - her emotions seemed to regularly flip flop between the two. It was awfully close to the album release date when she finally got the confirmation from her boss; she had begun to suspect maybe he didn’t _want_ to come back on the show after how they’d left things. He’d have every right to resent her after how she’d treated him.

She was knocked out of her thoughts whenever she heard a soft knock at the door, turning in her chair to see Matty standing outside with a sheepish smile, having arrived early. His hair was cropped quite a bit shorter than she’d seen it before but he was still sporting his natural curls. He was wearing some puffy yellow coat over a plain shirt, and stock standard worn out blue jeans. It was probably the most… _average_ , that she’d ever seen him look (not that average was ever a truly fitting word to describe Matthew Healy). She waited for him to push the door open and come in, but he seemed to be waiting for her to _let_ him in. As she stood up and opened the door, and he gingerly made his way inside and loitered next to her desk for a minute, she was suddenly vividly reminded of the first time she’d met him. All she could see was the nervous twenty-three-year-old that she’d met six years ago, who was scared shitless about his first _proper_ radio interview. The nostalgia hit like a freight train, and before she could give it a second thought she grabbed him in a tight hug.

He hugged her back, pressing his face into her shoulder as he let out the breath he had been holding. “I’m sorry…” She said quietly after a moment.

He gave an incredulous laugh at that, “ _You’re_ sorry? For what?” He asked. “I was the dickhead.”

“I just…” This hadn’t really been the way she expected herself to instantly react, nor had she thought of anything to say in this situation. Her mouth was running dry trying to come up with the right words to explain what she was feeling. “I wasn’t exactly a good friend.” 

“I think we were both a bit guilty of that.” He chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair, taking a step back.

“I should’ve tried harder.” She tried to explain, frowning at herself as she floundered for the right sentiment.

“It’s fine, truly.” He reassured her. “I wouldn’t have told you what was happening, anyway. Nobody knew.” He added with a shrug.

They took their seats opposite the desk, both feeling slightly relieved but well aware there was still tension surrounding them. “Uh, is there anything you want me to avoid asking about?” She asked eventually, busying herself with checking the text line to avoid looking directly at him.

“No.” Matty replied instantly. “I’d prefer you ask what you want to rather than censor yourself for my benefit. I won’t answer it if it’s too much.” He clarified. “Thanks for checking, though.”

“Are you…” She hesitated, unsure of the boundaries of their friendship now and how much she should be asking for her own curiosity. “Are you all right now?” She asked as she looked across to him.

He cracked a small smile, “Considerably better. Probably not all the way there yet, though. It’s hard with my girlfriend back at home for the moment, but I’m managing. Keeping busy with other stuff to stay occupied.” He answered truthfully. She nodded in understanding. “And you? It’s been at least three years since we’ve had a proper conversation.” The realisation of how long it had actually been stung slightly, but she ignored that feeling and instead focused on the fact that he seemed to genuinely want to know how she’d been.

“Good.” She grinned. “Doing well on the morning slot now that it’s been a few years.”

“You’ve been making a bit of a reputation for yourself over here, I hear your name get kicked around a bit when I’m at home. It’s nice to see you getting proper recognition for your efforts.” She tried her best not to blush at the subtle compliment.

Thankfully she didn’t have too long to dwell on his kind words and any connotations behind them before the interview started. The nervous butterflies sat at the pit of her stomach as she switched the live audio and video feeds over, lying in wait in case the interview still felt as awkward and forced as the last two.

“Matty, great to have you back.” She spoke, clearing her throat slightly.

“Great to be back after so long.” He said cheerfully.

“The 1975 release their new record in six days, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships-”

“Only six days?” He muttered to himself in slight disbelief. 

“We’ve only got a relatively short interview today, because after this you are heading straight into the live lounge to play a few tracks for us.” He made a noise of agreement. “We’ve heard five singles off it, all of which sound very different from one another in true 1975 fashion.” Matty laughed lightly at that. “And I noticed that you did the same thing with this album as what you did with I Like it When You Sleep; the first single you released was the first track on the album. Is this becoming a habit for you guys?” She asked.

“Probably not a _habit_.” He started, letting out a huff. “It just felt like the most natural thing to do. Whether it felt like a primary statement or not, I’m not sure. We’d already made an album by that point, we hadn’t made a group of singles. I hadn’t been thinking ‘oh, how do we butter them up?’ Just thought… this is the first song on the record. Put it out.” He shrugged.

“Do you think this is your strongest record so far?”

“A hundred percent.” He answered instantly.

“I’ve heard people comparing it to OK Computer. Saying that it’s a similar thing for the millennial generation.” She prompted.

He let out a groan, “I try not to think much about it.” He admitted. “I mean, what do I say? It’s so humbling and amazing, but strange also, because… the only realisation that I really came to, about the record – I think the reference to OK Computer is maybe it’s kind of, the narrative is incredibly twinned with how we communicate and the internet and all those kind of things. Which is obviously OK Computer in a nutshell. My favourite records are about _life_.” He said, clenching his fist for emphasis and knocking the microphone lightly. “It’s maybe a bit of a big thing to say, but I was just writing a record about relationships. Well… I wasn’t even doing that; I was just writing a record. And it turns out if you’re trying to write an honest record about relationships and how they’re mediated in the modern day, you’re kind of by proxy writing about the internet.” He explained. Things already felt more natural than what they had of late. Matty felt more open and responsive, which instantly put her mind at ease.

“One of the other singles that we’ve heard from the album is Love It If We Made It, which is…” She tried to pick her words carefully to best capture her thoughts on the song succinctly, “a pretty powerful song to say the least.”

Matty nodded enthusiastically before answering, “The thing with Love It If We Made It… it was very, very difficult to write. It’s a list of information. The idea stemmed from the fact that over a year we collected tabloid newspapers every day to make the lyrics. Unfortunately, when we got to trying that, it was too slapstick. The song was hard to get right. It needed to be as objective and as fair and as anti… ‘watch out sheeple’ as possible. And that’s hard to do.”

“It seems you guys did a good job with it in the end. It’s been resonating well with our listeners.”

“Thanks.” Matty grinned proudly. 

“It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You has also had quite the response.” She added, hoping he’d have a bit to say about that, and that maybe it could work as a segue to the questions blowing up her screen in her peripheral vision.

“It’s… I don’t know…” He sighed, staring blankly at the wall behind her as he tried to formulate an answer. “The way I always explain it, it’s like it’s a song that sounds poppy but it’s about something serious. Which, okay, that’s straight up 1975. And that’s because the feeling that I get from music, narratively or musically, can kind of be the same thing. You know like being nervous or being like, er, anxious for a date, _physically_ could be the same feeling as the fear of heights if you get rid of all the intellect. Emotionally, you get the same thing. I’ve always been like, I get this feeling when I read the lyrics of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen but I get the same carnal feeling when I hear the music to Girls Just Want to Have Fun. So… the synthesis of those ideas has just been the most obvious thing in the world for me, you know what I mean?” He looked across to her for confirmation. “I think that idea really sums up The 1975. If you’re a big fan of The 1975, that’s the most 1975-iest song on the record.”

She had hoped he would jump straight into the lyrical content of the song, but clearly she would need to segue into it herself. “That totally makes sense.” She agreed. “There’s been a bit of a debate about the subject matter of It’s Not Living.” She said, giving him a cautious glance. He’d said not to worry about asking whatever she wanted to, but that didn’t stop her from feeling like she was delving too deep into his private life.

He hummed thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure most of the fans _know_ what it’s about.” He said with a dry laugh. “I’ve not like… done some _big reveal_ of my relationship with drugs over the past couple of years. I think that because…” He stared down at the desk with a frown, “I used to have nightmares about being exposed. Because remember, my whole game has always been that ‘do I know that you know that I think that I’m a rock star?’ that’s always been my whole thing.” He said with a pointed look. “So, the idea though, of actually being known for being a junkie _and_ doing those kinds of things, used to _terrify_ me. Because then I’m a cliché. I lose all of my irony and lose all of my funniness because I’m an actual cliché. So, I think even when I’m talking about it on this record, I’m still going ‘Danny ran into some complications-’ it’s like I’m using characters. It’s a bit like somebody going ‘I’ve got this mate, right, and he’s got a bit of this weird rash-’ “ He chuckled. “Like ‘yeah, all right, well tell your _mate-_ ’ it’s like we know who you’re talking about. I think the idea that I’m still trying to hide and remove myself from it is part of the gag. But then the chorus is brutally honest. It’s difficult to write a song like that. It’s hard to despise the idea of fetishizing or romanticising drug use as a behaviour but then only having my truth. Like I don’t have anything else, I don’t have anywhere else to talk about it. There is a hopelessness to drug addiction. You don’t keep doing it because it’s _cool_ , you keep doing it because you feel like there’s no life without it.” His expression seemed to become quite sombre at that before he continued his train of thought. “And to express that… it wasn’t like a relief for me. The music is a catharsis for me, but it wasn’t like I needed to get that out. Unfortunately, I’m only my set of experiences, and they’re pretty limited as somebody who’s been on the road for four years trying to mediate his life through drug addiction, y’know? So yeah… it’s difficult to walk that line. Um… But I just had to make sure that… like with most of my work, any discussion of my behaviour is normally with a profound distaste. And kids are smart, man.”

She hadn’t really expected him to be so open about it so readily. “What started it?” She asked instinctually, almost forgetting for a moment that she was at work and meant to be providing entertainment. “If you don’t mind me asking.” She added as an afterthought.

He waved a hand dismissively at her worry. “I’d be on stage, and there would be however many thousands of people. And I’m genuinely trying to connect with people, you know? And then it’s _done_. Go back to the hotel room. Go to sleep. Like… what?” He answered with a frustrated huff. “I was trying to change culture in my head ten minutes ago and now I’ve gotta go to sleep? I used drugs to go to sleep primarily. I’ve never had a good relationship with sleep, anyway… I’ve always been jealous of people they’ll tell me about a dream and they’ll kind of like explain this little kind of film that they’ve been that has a dynamic of emotions and it was up and it was down and my dreams are just like _terror_. Just fear. I’ve never had that many good dreams. And drugs stop you dreaming. But then obviously… you have _solutions_ to get rid of that post-show buzz. Didn’t really get me anywhere. Spoilt it, as well. Did way too much. Did loads of it.” He admitted. “So, I can’t do anymore of it… when I’m older.” He laughed.

“So, you became reliant on that as a comedown?” She questioned.

“It was always gonna happen with me with opiates.” He said bluntly. “I only say this in case people relate to it, but like, when I was younger, I kind of used to _dream_ about being sedated. And unfortunately, sex, drugs, other things, religion, I’ve loved all these things in my life but they’ve never just-” He clicked his fingers, “turned it off. And unfortunately, when I tried those drugs, I – temporarily, for a moment – had that. And I was like, _right_ , this is gonna help. And erm,” He picked at his nail anxiously. “It just takes your shine off, slows you down. Makes you lie, which is a nightmare for somebody who is so Mr Tell The Truth.”

“The lies are what got you caught?”

He made a noise of contemplation. “The problem is… I’m very, very lucky, is what I am. And I have an infrastructure around me of like… we’ve been a band since we were fourteen, I’m twenty-nine, right.” He said with a pointed look in her direction. “We’re like brothers, we love each other. I have amazing opportunities like this,” He gestured around the studio, “I have my health, I have all these things. There’s not a lot of people around me who allow stuff like… hard drug use. And that’s really annoying when you’re a drug addict. But it also makes you reflect, you know what I mean? Because you just end up lying, and being a version of yourself that- but that’s part of the sickness. You incentivise things weirdly.” He explained with a shrug.

“And the rehab centre you went to was in Barbados?” She asked. He nodded in response. “I heard that the band paid for that?”

His expression visibly softened when she brought that up. “Yeah. I think the nice story was that uh… Obviously, I’m in a fortunate place in my career that - obviously I have to think about those kind of financial things - but before I went I was kind of thinking ‘I’ll sort that out when I’m out there’ and then I remember saying to Jamie ‘oh-‘ and he was like ‘aw nah, nah, it’s all sorted’ and I was like ‘Oh, how much did it - what was it?’ and he was like ‘oh, well we just did it out the band’ and I was like ‘oh really??’ “ He seemed visibly touched by this story, even retelling it now.

“That was pretty amazing of them to do.”

“Yeah… Yeah, it was.” He muttered, still clearly caught up in his own thoughts. “And you know what, if you want a band to last forever, _share_.” He added simply.

“And this place you went to, supposedly they do a bunch of stuff with horses?” She asked in confusion. When she had heard this information, she was almost certain she had gotten her wires crossed, but Matty was already confirming what she had said.

“Equine therapy, yeah! It was, basically…” He started trying to explain, before cracking a smile and looking across to her. “In reality what it was, for the first two or three days was me stood in a field rolling my eyes next to a horse.” He said with a laugh. “That’s what it was really. This guy put me in a field with a horse and was like ‘talk to the horse’ so I’m like” He gave a sarcastic look, “ ‘…all right?’ So, he leaves me alone and I’m like ‘hey man’ and the horse obviously didn’t say anything.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the image. “And then he put me in the round pen, right. He put me in this pen which was just round – was a good explanation of it.” He reprimanded himself with a snort. “And I stood in the middle, and basically he said ‘I want you to walk towards the horse. It’s gonna send the horse around in a loop, and I want you to assert your position. You’re not going to get the horse. You’re just telling the horse that this is where you’re going’. All this stuff. So, I do it. And he goes ‘you’ll notice three things, at one point the horse will dip its head, then it’ll bow its ear to you, then it’ll start biting its lips. Once it’s done these three things, I want you to turn your back and drop the rope.’ So, I’m like right, lips, thing, do this, yep. And the horse is running, the horse is running, I watched for these three cues, and I dropped the rope and I turned round. The horse stopped dead.” He clapped his hands together for emphasis, staring at her seriously.

“I swear to you, it was one of the most profound moments of my life. The horse stopped dead, came over to me and stood behind me – and this is a horse that for three days had _mugged me off_. And I was… stood there with this horse, that now… wanted to be with me?” He seemed entirely perplexed by this. “Then when I walked it wouldn’t cross my feet,” He gestured to his feet as he said this, knocking his microphone in the process. “Sorry, I keep hitting the microphone. Way too gesticulated today. Erm, when I went into the field and hung out with it, it wanted to be with me. And then I stood there and was like ‘Ah… Right…’ Then all of these profound things… It was so…” He tried his best to find the words. “It ate everything it needed to eat, and didn’t complain about it, and didn’t eat too much of it, and ate the right stuff. It had the ability to destroy anything it wanted, but the desire to hurt nothing. It was physically perfect and strong. It was forgiving with its time with me. And it was kind of compassionate in a way, ‘cause he’s a _horse_ , he doesn’t want me there, he just wants to be a horse. But he let me be there.” It was abundantly clear how much of an impact this experience had on Matty. He spoke about it so passionately that it was hard not to feel moved by what he was saying. “I found myself envying all of these human qualities in a _horse_. And I think that was the point of it…” He said with a look of finality. “At least, I hope that was the point of it. Otherwise I’ve screwed it up and learned nothing.” He laughed loudly. “But it worked for me.”

“How are you finding it? Being off the drugs?” She asked, leaning back in her seat after having been leant forward in interest for the last few minutes as he told his story.

He pulled a face as he tried to answer that in a manner suitable for a mass radio audience. “I mean… I wouldn’t say I’m this ‘beacon of sobriety’ “ He punctuated that with air quotes, “that’s kind of, telling you how it is to be an ex addict. I don’t know.” He answered sincerely. “I’ve not gone long enough. I’m not gonna start talking about ‘I haven’t done drugs in five years - ten years’ it was only a few months ago. I was still doing loads of them.” He said as he scratched at his neck.

“Is it harder now without them?”

“I don’t sleep as good as I used to with it, but I’m getting by.” He replied with a nod. “I’m all right with sleeping now. The band and my girlfriend have been really supportive and helpful. I’m doing all the things now that I used to do when I took drugs all the time. So, I’ve just made a record without doing it all the time,” He ticked that off on a finger, “so that was an experience, that was a challenge. I’ve now started touring without doing it all the time,” He ticked that off as well, “that’s an experience, that’s a challenge. I’m now about to start getting on planes all the time and touring internationally,” He added that to the list, “that’ll be a challenge. But you’ve just gotta take it day by day as the cliché says, or you’ll freak yourself out.”

“You talk about drugs pretty freely in your music, but you don’t really speak about it in interviews, was that to try and stay… disconnected from it to some degree? Did you think it was going to get as bad as it did?” She asked. She had entirely tuned out of the fan questions being sent in now, asking these questions almost purely from her own curiosity to know what had happened to the Matty she knew.

“No, no, no… I didn’t. I mean, I think the thing that I think I always have confidence in is that because I’ve – regardless of if it’s drugs or relationships - the main thing I’ve done with The 1975 is spoken about myself with kind of quite a profound disdain.” He answered. “There’s not really been a celebration of the behaviour. I think that if I was ever romanticising or fetishizing the use of drugs, I think I’d catch myself doing it. And if I ever have done that in a lyric, it will be immediately met with a lyric that shows that one up to be ironic or flawed.” He elaborated. That made sense. Most of his songs did reflect that attitude. “I’ve just had to be honest. Religion allows you to kind of give something away, sex, exactly the same thing. They’re just ways of giving up some kind of responsibility in the moment. But by that point I’d done ‘em all!” He grinned, still trying to keep the mood light despite the heavy topic. “Drugs was the only one left.”

She stared at him for a moment, just taking in all of the information he’d given her in such a short timeframe. It was a lot to process all at once, but it made a lot of the pieces click into place and answered a lot of questions that had kept her up at night when they had lost contact. Eventually she clocked back into reality, seeing that he was watching her just as intently as she had been watching him while he had divulged some of the most intimate aspects of his life.

“So, to a lighter note-” She segued.

“It’s fine, I don’t mind talking about it.” He said with a chuckle.

She smiled back at him, “I’m sure our listeners have enjoyed hearing it all in such great detail. But, there are some other big events that have been happening in your life as well that we haven’t brought up.” She said.

“Oh?”

“The 1975 will be headlining Reading and Leeds next year.”

“Yes!” He beamed. “It’s our first big headline festival. It gets me proper emotional. We didn’t just _go_ as kids, after I got to thirteen, Christmas took a back seat and the date on my calendar was Reading and Leeds. I went one year with a tenner and no tent. I mean, I’ve had some _moments_ there. It’ll definitely be a very humble show. All of this ego and confidence here will be gone.” He scoffed, “ ‘Honestly guys, thanks so much for coming.’ ” He said in a feigned blubbering emotional voice, before giggling at himself. “But like, we’ve just become a really good band in my opinion. I think we could headline Reading and Leeds tomorrow if you asked us to.”

“Are you particularly excited to have content off the new album to perform there?”

“Definitely. There are some songs on there that will be added into the festival setlists. It was about creating a distillation of what preceded it. Everything needed to be better, more extreme. Poppy bits poppier, heavy bits heavier, honest bits more honest.” He explained with a nod. “You can look at your work and be like ‘what did I do there that someone likes’ or ‘let’s try and do that piano thing’. Me, when I’m like, really personal, really honest, that’s when I get the best reaction. So, I just tend to do that. Like what’s gonna make me, y’know-“ He started pretending to tear up for emphasis.

“And you guys are already working on the next album, Notes on a Conditional Form? This one’s not even out yet!”

He just laughed. “We went away and what happened was, we finished A Brief Inquiry, kind of had a week off and then we started with Notes. I’m just letting it happen.” He shrugged. “I’m letting it happen in the next six months. It’ll be before…” He seemed to be doing some calculations in his head. “August. It has to be in time for Reading and Leeds.” He added decisively.

Glancing down at the clock on the screen next to her, she could see that they had in fact gone over time. “Well, as always Matty, it’s been lovely having you on the show, but I think we have to wrap it up so you can scoot over to the live lounge and get yourself set up.” She said with a small sigh, disappointed that the interview had to end after how well it had been going. Matty had felt entirely captivating as he spoke today, clearly on his game.

“God, this’ll be the first time we’ve played together in… ages.” He said as he pulled a hand through his hair and leaned back into his chair. “And we’ve not played these songs live yet, either. This will be the debut.”

“Incredibly exciting.” She nodded. “So, I’ll let you go. Tune in folks in half an hour, The 1975 will be playing a short set for us of songs from their new album, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, in the live lounge.” She spoke into the microphone, before rounding out the interview.

Matty didn’t move from his chair across from her as she switched the camera feed off and switched over to the next round of tracks.

“Are you coming?” He asked as soon as she took her headset off. “To the live lounge?” He clarified.

Her shift was meant to end in just over twenty minutes, and they started in thirty. She could probably finish up quickly enough to make it down there in time. “Yeah, I can do that.” She said with a nod.

He grinned eagerly, “It’ll be wicked to have you there for it.”

“It’s probably about time I saw you guys play.” She laughed as he stood up.

“I’ll see you shortly.” He said over his shoulder as he made his way out of the studio.

* * *

By the time she made her way down to the live lounge quite a crowd had already formed. Her handover between shifts had been fairly rushed in an attempt to get out of there quickly, but obviously The 1975 knew how to draw an audience. She managed to squeeze her way through a few crew members to get a decent enough viewing point. Whenever she caught Matty’s gaze, he waved at her excitedly. She waved back, suddenly feeling a bout of nerves at the thought of finally watching him in action. Once the cameras were set up and all of the equipment had done one final round of checks, they launched into quite a boppy first song. She recognised this instantly as Tootime, as it had been her favourite of the singles that were released. He sounded a bit rusty and raw, which thankfully he could cover with the filter over his voice, but his enthusiasm to be performing again was unmistakable. The looks he was throwing to his band were nothing short of ecstatic, and despite being out of practice they played the song flawlessly. They finished up the first song, and he shrugged off his yellow jacket as they changed their gear over for the next two. Their little live set was only three songs long in the end, but they felt It’s Not Living and Sincerity Is Scary were excellent choices to best get across the vibe of the new album. After seeing what they could do in a tiny room with minimal fanfare, she was suddenly kicking herself for never getting out to one of their live shows.

When they had wrapped up the set, Matty started packing away his gear before seeing her starting to leave. He quickly dropped what he was doing and called out to her to wait up. She turned to face him, as he suddenly realised that he hadn’t worked out what to actually say. “Look, I’m sorry about… how I’ve been lately.” He eventually settled on.

“It’s okay, you were going through a rough time.” She reassured him.

“I was,” He nodded, “but it’s not really an excuse.” He added with a sigh. “Can I take you out to lunch after this? To apologise properly.” He asked with a hopeful look.

“You don’t have to-” She started, before he interrupted.

“I know I don’t _have_ to - I _want_ to.” He corrected. She considered this offer for a moment. “Please?”

“Sure.” She nodded, trying to conceal her smile. “That’d be nice.”

She waited patiently as he packed up his gear, feeling slightly awkward for loitering around a studio that wasn’t hers while she watched everyone else clear out. Once everything seemed fairly put away, he exchanged a quiet word with the band and walked over to where she was standing.

“Any preferences for where we eat? It’s your apology lunch, after all.” He said as he slipped his jacket back on.

She grimaced at his choice of words. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Why?” He laughed.

“It makes me feel worse than I already do.”

“Suppose we’ll just feel bad together, then.” He said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and ushered her back out of the building. She couldn’t deny, it felt nice to be seeing Matty act more like he had when they’d first met. Whether that was because she enjoyed the attention or because it was nice to see her friend feeling more himself was up for debate.

Due to neither of them being the one to want to make the call about where to eat, for fear of the other not enjoying it, they ended up going to the only place that served food within their direct eyeline – a bakery. It made her feel less like she was taking advantage too for him to only have to pay for pastries and coffee, not a proper fancy meal with drinks. They caught each other up on the fine points of their lives that they’d missed out on hearing over the last few years: highlights in careers, people who’d come and gone, other artists they’d met that had proved to be noteworthy (for good reasons and bad). It was incredibly reassuring for the both of them to know that conversation still flowed easily enough between them when they weren’t actively disliking each other.

“Sorry if the interview was a bit… too personal. We didn’t really talk about the record all that much, in the end.” She said, thinking back to how long they’d spent discussing his drug habits rather than his impending album release.

“Stop apologising.” He said around a mouthful of food. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be saying sorry. And I’m sure the fans would’ve liked it.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to force stuff out of you for the sake of entertainment.”

“Like I said, I wouldn’t have answered if I didn’t want to.” He reminded her.

He waited a beat, composing what he had originally wanted to say today before clearing his throat. “I really am sorry, you know. For how I left things.” He said as he stared down into his mug of tea.

“It’s genuinely okay, Matty.” She reassured him. “I wasn’t really any better.” She added under her breath.

“I was just a bit oblivious and hopeful when I fucked stuff up initially. I wanted to act like I hadn’t dropped off your radar for two years.” He admitted as he scratched at the side of his head. “If I’m honest, I was reaching out to get some support from an old mate in a time when I felt pretty overwhelmed by everything that was happening. But I went about it in all the wrong ways and just made it a whole lot worse.” He clarified with a dry laugh. As if she hadn’t already felt bad enough, now he tells her that she’d shut him out when he had been trying to ask for help? The guilt increased tenfold.

“Sorry.” She said. He was about to tell her off again for apologising, but she cut him off. “I was already pretty shitty that I hadn’t seen you in so long, so I was pretty quick to want to end that interaction when things started getting… difficult.” She explained.

“Guess you live and learn, huh?” He said with a small smile. “At least we’re still mates now.” Hearing him say that helped ease a bit of her worry that she’d done as much to fuck things up as he had. At least now that it was all out in the open, they could move past it.

“Yeah.” She concurred, returning his smile. They finished up the pastries that Matty had bought before stepping out of the bakery. Both of them felt like a weight had been lifted now that they knew they hadn’t screwed stuff up for good between them. Having each said their piece, they were pretty confident that they could give friendship another shot.

“It was great to see you.” He said as he pulled her in for a hug tight enough that it almost made her lose her breath.

“Next time we’ll have to make sure it’s not so long.” She said as he moved back from the hug.

“We’ll keep in touch.” He agreed with a nod. “And I mean it this time.”


	7. Say What's On Your Mind

** 19th of February, 2019 **

A lot of people hated Mondays. That first day of the week where you had to forfeit the rest of your weekend good mood and go back into your nine to five. However, at the radio station, Tuesdays felt the worst. Mondays gave you something to do, you had emails to answer and stuff to sort out from the weekend, you got to catch up with your colleagues about what they’d done for the last two days. But Tuesdays? They dragged. You’ve already sorted out the work that had piled up, everyone is still resentful that the weekend has ended, and now you know you have to rest of the week staring you down. A lot of these thoughts were crossing her mind as she struggled to keep her eyes open during song breaks. Morning shift had taken some getting used to, and as much as it had been years now, waking up at four in the morning was never _truly_ ideal, despite it being for a good cause. Absentmindedly she heard the glass door open behind her, but didn’t really register it until a takeaway coffee cup was placed in front of her.

“You’re cute when you’re half asleep.” Matty grinned down at her. She just smiled back, a familiar warm feeling settling in her chest at seeing her friend. “Are you blushing?” He teased instantly.

“No.” She lied, taking a sip from the cup.

“Your hair looks weird straight.” She noted as he took a seat across from her. Had he not already sent her a photo of his hair when he’d first done it, it probably would’ve come as a shock. She had been expecting it, but that didn’t make it any less strange to not be faced with his usual mop of curls.

“Easier to manage.” He shrugged as he took a swig from his own drink. “You doing well?”

She nodded softly. “Sorted out that issue with my record player I was telling you about the other day.” As promised, they had indeed stayed in touch this time. Besides the odd meme or text to check in, they’d both been making more of an effort to make time to catch up with one another when Matty was in town.

“Great. I’ll have to bring a few ‘round then.” He replied eagerly.

“You?”

“Brilliant.” He beamed. “Had a great show last night and excited for the BRITs tomorrow. Happier to be here, though.” He added with a smooth wink.

“Yeah, yeah.” She said with a roll of her eyes. “You always say that.”

They had a few minutes to chat, and thankfully for her, to drink and process some of the coffee he had kindly brought before they had to start the interview.

“So, you guys played a show last night at The Garage for BRITs Week. I believe there were only six hundred tickets that were raffled off to raise money for War Child?” She asked once they’d done the usual pleasantries.

“Yeah, it was a real small affair.” He answered with a smile.

“Was there any particular reason you guys wanted to do that?” 

“Well, we were already at home for the BRIT awards. Why wouldn’t we do a show for War Child?” He chuckled. “To know that money that we’ve raised gets to go to tangible causes, it’s just really important to us.”

“It’s amazing that you guys got offered such an opportunity.” She agreed. “Six hundred would’ve also been a change from the arena shows you’ve been doing lately.”

“It was a wicked change of pace. The idea of the individual is way more apparent in a small room. You can _see_ people. It’s just exciting. It’s a good vibe.” He rattled off excitedly, clearly still high on the memory of a good show.

“It would’ve been good to play new tracks, now that the A Brief Inquiry is out. Have you got much to say about the record for those who’ve not listened yet?” She questioned.

He thought about this for a moment, humming quietly to himself. “It has a kind of metamorphosis to it. But I think if you do anything that you put that much heart into, you want it to be kind of reflective of who you are as a person. And I think people are inherently dynamic things, aren’t they?” He asked rhetorically, though still looked across to her like he was half expecting an answer. “Nobody’s one thing, are they? And especially with the internet now nobody is kind of tribalist in their identity anymore. I just want people to have the same sense of freedom the record has.”

“Were there any firsts while making this record?” She asked.

“That’s kind of a George question. He kind of delved into more analogue synth stuff. There’s a lot of _real_ electronic stuff kind of going on. But yeah, I think we just tried to push ourselves and try things we’ve never done. But we always do that, because it would be boring otherwise.” He shrugged.

“And you guys have always been very big on aesthetic, the black and white, the neon pink,” He nodded in agreement as she spoke. “what’s the vibe for this one?”

“It’s very… deconstructed. That sort of thing is important for us. I think it all kind of comes with the territory for me. When I’m thinking about music or making records, it’s all very _there_ anyway.” He made a vague hand gesture to try and convey his point. “It makes sense to do it. All of the records are the same thing aesthetically, though - it basically ties together something that’s not remotely tied together. So, the consistency comes from the visual and lyrical narratives.” He explained.

“The lyrical narrative throughout the album is definitely some of your best work.” He muttered a quiet ‘thanks’. “Did you think in your career that you’d be creating such noteworthy tracks as It’s Not Living and Sincerity?”

“No.” He answered quickly. “No, I didn’t. Erm… From what I can see, we’re one of like the first – genre is dead now, that’s the whole thing, right?” As always, changing his mind about what to say halfway through saying it. “And we were surely one of the first bands of recent times to really pedal that idea? I was in emo and hardcore bands. I was an emo, hardcore kid. So, I just grew up in Drive Like I Do, that’s what we were, you know? But then the internet turned into this thing where just, as a young person, there was so much potential and so much like ‘actually, I am kind of into that?’ I’d always grown up listening to… what I was into was like… black music. Like American black music. Soul music, funk music. That was what I’d grown up on. And then I think when I got to fifteen, sixteen, and we stopped caring about what we needed to- how we were gonna get shows, we just kind of turned into this weird thing. It’s cool. I like how weird The 1975 is.” He said with a fond smile.

“Were there any ideas you were particularly eager to explore on this album?” She asked.

“I’m always yearning for something bigger, yearning for something _different_. I’ve had a profound and _not_ profound revelation, I mean… it’s not a very interesting point to make when I say that, outside of this communication that we’re having now-” He said as he gestured between them, “me and you face to face - that all of our communication is kind of mediated through the internet. It’s just gonna happen on the internet, whether it’s me ringing my manager on facetime, or talking to my girlfriend. It’s not even an interesting observation to say ‘well that all happens on the internet’ we just _know_ that. But ten years ago, had you told somebody that all communication that exists outside of one to one is gonna be through the internet, that’s how _total_ it’s presence will be, that would be a very strange idea. And I think we’d pose questions, like why? Have we really thought about it? So, I realised that if I’m writing a record about relationships and how they’re gonna work, you are inherently writing a record about the internet. You can’t _not_.” He spoke as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling while he calculated his words. “The world isn’t fair. Reality is chaos; therefore, it’s unfair. With the internet, we’re informed of as much chaos as possible, which makes everything feel unbearable. We’re just part of this massive social experiment and we’re conducting it ourselves.” He continued, seemingly really on a roll. “Can society sustain the way that we’re communicating with each other? Is my anxiety _my_ anxiety? Is that separate from the algorithm that is the internet that keeps us informed of all the chaos in reality? I don’t think so. I’m not surprised when I look at the world and see the amount of mental health issues that are going around.”

Matty was really on his game. She could see in his enthusiasm and hear in his detailed answers that he was putting his all into it today. But maybe he was just still overly excitable after a great show. Either way, she was going to reap the benefits while she had the surge of interview listeners on her side.

“What do you think about the dopamine kicks that we get from social media? Do you think we’ll ever get over that? Or will it forever dictate how we communicate?” She questioned.

He had quite an intrigued look on his face as she asked this. “I don’t know.” He said truthfully, before thinking for a moment. “Anything that’s deeply ingrained in society, you can’t – like look at where we are with guns now in America, for example. You can debate it all you want, but the fact of the matter is we _know_ it’s probably not good for society for everyone to have a gun. I understand the ‘oh, well if he’s got a gun, I need a gun’ like, I get that.” He pulled a face of distaste. “The problem is if you give a society something and then realise it doesn’t work, you can’t just take it back. You can’t do that with social media, you can’t go ‘by the way guys, we’ve now figured out it’s _really_ fucking with how we communicate with each other.’ And also, the changes would need to come from within. It’s only going to come from an Apple or a Google. But that’s unrealistic because it’s about making profit.” He elaborated.

“You deal with so many emotionally intensive issues in your lyrics, from relationships, to loss, to suicidal thoughts.” He hummed in acknowledgement, resting his chin on his clasped hands as he waited for her to continue. “Do you find it difficult to handle the emotional investment fans give you when they resonate with that?” She asked.

He groaned quietly. It was always hard for him to answer this sort of thing, because he felt it made him look like he was being rude, but that was never his intent. “I think that it’s difficult when you are presented with it so often, the whole ‘you saved my life’ thing. You can’t take in everyone that says it because you’d lose your mind. If I tried to take on the emotional responsibility of everybody who said that to me, I’d lose my mind. So, I try and take a really serious artistic responsibility. I try and put it all into my music so it’s there to be shared with _everybody_ so I don’t have to try and individually deal with those things. It’s weird, isn’t it..?” He mused to himself. “I don’t think I like it. I’m never in an environment where I can truly appreciate it, nor should, nor would it be _wise_ to try and appreciate it. If I see a kid out in London when I’m not making a record or whatever, I’ve had coffee with kids, properly talked with them about that kind of thing. But at a show, on a show day, where there’s other people around, or at a meet and greet, when it’s like ‘can I just say this thing while I’m getting a picture?’ I can’t deal with a three second summarisation of your sister dying. I _can’t_.” He looked quite pained as he was saying this. Obviously, it was a scenario that bothered him. “It’s too much for me… that’s where I struggle with it. Because it really does affect you. I spend a lot of time thinking about it… I really do care. It blows my mind that people _get_ what I do, you know?” He eventually sighed.

She gave him a moment to recompose himself, waiting before he met her gaze before she changed topics. “Are you still working towards Notes being out in six months?” She asked.

“Yep.”

“Two albums in a year is kind of lunacy, I think.” She laughed.

“Yeah, so do I, now.” He admitted as he ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

“Are you regretting giving it such an early release date?”

“No, er, yeah, uh, no.” He stumbled over his words. “Of course, I am… not. I think I would regret it but, listen,” He got a look of conviction in his eyes, “it’s not trying to be clever. It’s not trying to do anything apart from like… we’re artists, but we’re consumers primarily. They always say we’re in that age now where you’ll watch the best thing you’ve ever seen on Netflix and then you immediately want the next thing. But what do you wanna do in a band? You wanna affect culture. And I don’t think you can do that with just one record.” He answered. “And we love it as well, it’s what we do.” He added.

“Are you excited to add the Notes tracks to the setlist?” She questioned.

“No.” He said abruptly, shaking his head. “Because in my head, that can’t happen yet. In my head it’s a record that can’t even be played live because it sounds so different to the rest of the thing. I think The Birthday Party we’ll play live at some point.” He said as he looked like he was playing the tune to himself in his head, mulling this decision over. “I think that’s our best, it might be our best song. It’s definitely a song I feel as a song writer that I was like ‘okay, I’m doing it now. I’m doing it properly now.’ That’ll be fun. Frail State of Mind will be fun… To be honest with you, I think America’s gonna,” He gasped and made a face of shock, “be a little bit… it might take them a second. Only a second, though.” He instantly amended. “Because America’s awesome. But every time we make a record I go back to a really, really personal experience of music. A lot of Notes on a Conditional Form there were kind of soul records that I grew up with and ambient music that I grew up with. There’s a lot of UK dance music culture on this record. The music that I used to listen to smoking weed in cars at seventeen.” He said with a laugh.

“Any idea when we’ll hear some of it?”

“Soon.” He said with a mischievous smile.

The rest of the interview was comprised of a few songs, questions fans had texted in, and then a bit more talking up the album. It was nice now that things weren’t awkward, that she wasn’t trying to rush through her outros to try and get a chance to talk to him. He just patiently waited in his seat for her to finish up.

“Are you coming to the BRITs tomorrow night?” He asked as soon as she slipped her headset around her neck.

“Uh, I don’t know.” She asked, a bit bewildered at the prospect. “I’ll need to check.”

“Well, it would be nice to have another familiar face there.” He said with his best attempt at a convincing tone.

“I would’ve thought most of the faces there would be familiar to you by now.” She shot back.

“It’d be nice to have another _friend_ there.” He corrected.

She held his gaze for a second as she decided whether she’d want to go or not. The station would definitely be sending people, but it would be her first major awards show, and really, she’d only know her colleagues and Matty. That would leave her in the lurch if he decided to fuck off and go do his own thing. But he did seem to want her there by the look he was giving her now. “I’ll ask my boss.” She resigned, earning an eager grin from him.

* * *

Joining a high-profile radio station had been a pretty intimidating role to undertake. Interviewing celebrities and big-name artists was a new round of nerve-wracking fear. Being put on the prime-time slot was daunting to the point of debating whether she’d survive the challenge or not. But this? Being at a proper award show with _so_ many people she had only _heard_ of? This gave a whole new meaning to anxiety. She’d practically clung to her boss as they walked in, taking in the grand surroundings bit by bit to try and make it less overwhelming. The guest list, the waitstaff running around, the seating plan, the décor, the _atmosphere_ , it was all a next level music industry event compared to what she had experienced until this point. The station staff took their seats at their assigned table, everyone settling in for the night ahead. She took one last glance around the room, quickly locking eyes with Matty as he finished up chatting with someone. He was wearing a neatly pressed tuxedo, matching the rest of his band standing around him. The straightened hair really seemed to suit the overall look he was now sporting. It was by far the most dressed up she’d ever seen him.

“Looking good, Matty.” She commented as he walked over. Things felt a bit less frightening now that he’d pulled up the empty seat next to her.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” He replied as he took in her outfit. He didn’t think he’d seen her in a dress before, let alone one that looked as good as that. “But you always look beautiful.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” She said, but instantly found herself blushing. “I can’t believe you do these sorts of things all the time. This is insane.” She muttered as a drink was placed down in front of her.

“You get used to it, like you do with anything.” He shrugged.

“Are you sure about that?” She asked in disbelief. This didn’t seem like a feeling that could just become the norm.

“They’re not so interesting once they’re just a part of your routine.” He explained. “But they’re more interesting with company.” He grinned.

She opted to change the topic instead of letting him continue on like this all night, “What awards are you up for?”

“Erm, best group and best album? I think?” He questioned, seemingly unsure himself of what he was meant to be accepting if they won.

“You got a speech prepared?” She asked as she took a sip of the champagne she’d been given.

“I’ll wing it.” He said simply.

“You’ll _wing it_?” She asked in shock. “Are you crazy?”

He chuckled, “It’s gotten me this far, right?”

“But- What- Surely people expect something more composed?” She was stumbling over her words now as she tried to wrap her head around someone _not_ being prepared for such a major possibility.

“Are you saying I’m not composed normally?” He asked with a fake hurt expression. “I’ve got a rough idea, don’t worry.” He said as he elbowed her affectionately.

Sure enough, they did win. They won _both_ awards that they were nominated for. As expected, when put on the spot Matty was still entirely charismatic and charming, despite his lack of preparation. It was during the second win however that he pulled a small slip of paper out of his pocket and used his chance in front of such an audience to his advantage. He took the podium, glancing anxiously out at the crowd and looking like he was reciting in his head what he wanted to say one last time. In the end, he decided not to add anything to the already powerful quote bringing light to the misogyny he’d seen himself time and time again in the music world. The uproar of a reception gave him the impression it had been well received, but regardless he was glad to have used his chance to say something of importance. Once the band had taken their seats again, and the two awards they now had were displayed proudly on the table, Matty quietly slipped away and went back to the station’s table.

“I think I did all right.” He said in a hushed tone as he sat down with two drinks. She nearly jumped, having not expected Matty to be free to chat until well after the ceremonies had finished. Taking a look at the drinks he was holding, one was oddly familiar looking in comparison to the stock standard champagne, wines and beers she’d seen being given out on trays.

“How do you know my favourite drink?” She asked with a frown as he handed it to her.

“I’m observant.” He shrugged as he took a sip from his own.

She watched him for a moment, before registering what he had originally said. “Your speech was really good.” She agreed as she saw someone else descending the stage in her peripherals while everyone clapped. “I thought you said you hadn’t planned anything?”

“I suppose that I was like… well, what do I say?” He frowned. “I’m not doing anything like that to be a _woke king_ or whatever. It was just one of the best thing’s I’d read and it’s been all I’ve been thinking about today. Laura said it better than I ever could.” He leaned in slightly closer, speaking quietly as to not be overheard by too many people. “It’s frustrating being in this room. Every man in this room knows a woman in the industry who’s been at one time subject to misogynistic behaviour when professionalism should’ve been at play.” He explained, visibly worked up.

“It’s a good thing that there’s men like you in the industry.” She nodded, holding her glass out for him to tap his to it to celebrate.

They watched another half hour of the awards tick by, before Matty started getting antsy.

“I’m gonna step out for a smoke.” He muttered, motioning for her to follow him. She forgot for a brief moment that she didn’t smoke, and thus had no real reason to follow him, throwing a cursory glance around the table before she quietly stood up and let him lead her to one of the exits. The cold night air was refreshing compared to how warm it was inside with that many people crammed in the venue. She watched Matty pull a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, before an idea struck her to help her settle her own nerves surrounding the fancy event.

“Got any weed?” She asked. His eyebrows shot up in surprise as he shook his head. She narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. “You always have weed.”

“I swear, I don’t have any left. I only brought a little bit.” He said as he held his hands up defensively. She grabbed the lapel of his jacket, reaching into the inside pocket and taking out the joint that she knew would be there. “I have no idea where that came from.” He lied, suddenly taking a lot of interest in the cracks on the wall behind her.

“ _Sure,_ Matty.” The sarcasm was practically dripping in her tone.

He paused for a beat, taking a quick look to make sure that they were alone in the carpark. “Come on, let’s split it.”

He’d figured his car would probably be the best spot to smoke. Nobody could really tell him off for sitting in his own car. Not that he was overly worried, he figured that most people would be too preoccupied inside, anyway. They got comfortable before he lit up the joint, handing it to her once he was sure it was going. She took a deep drag and handed it back over to him.

“Are you proud?” She questioned.

“Hm?”

“Of the awards.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess.” He nodded as he let go of the smoke in his lungs. “It’s always nice to feel validated for your efforts.”

“Do you ever feel… ripped off that the EPs didn’t get much attention?” She asked thoughtfully. Way back then, she knew they were going places, but didn’t think they’d soar quite this high.

“They got plenty of attention considering the position we were in.” He reasoned.

“You wouldn’t do any of it differently in hindsight?”

“Never.” He shook his head aggressively. “If I’d done things differently then, I wouldn’t be here now. But honestly, it was so long ago… It seems like a different _time._ I feel like a completely different person.”

There was a moment of quiet as they both contemplated how far they’d come. Matty was knocked out of his thoughts whenever he heard music coming from her side of the car. He watched with interest as she rested her phone on the dashboard. This song was oddly familiar… “The set of A Brief Inquiry and Notes overall is called Music for Cars as well, isn’t it?” She asked as she exhaled the smoke she had just taken in, watching it sit at the roof of the car before dissipating.

“I didn’t think I was still being interviewed.” He laughed.

“You can just tell me to shut up.” She replied with a shrug.

“I’d never dream of it.” He scoffed with a goofy smile as he nudged her shoulder. She had to try her best not to mirror it. The combination of the weed and the intimate setting with Matty had her feeling pretty warm and fuzzy and sentimental about being good friends again. It was when the song changed that he recognised what was playing. It was his EP. “Why would you put on Music for Cars..?” As soon as the words left his lips, he realised exactly why. He dissolved into a fit of giggles as he clued on to the full circle moment of listening to his own music in the setting he had intended for others to listen to it. His laughter was contagious as the two of them chuckled their way through the song.

The laughter eventually subsided and the remainder of the EP played as they sat there quietly. It was nearing the end of the tracks when Matty finally spoke again. “I… This isn’t….” He seemed to be hesitating about what he wanted to say. It was always odd seeing the normally magnetic Matty looking nervous. “I’m not on the record or anything now, am I?” He asked as he ran a hand through his hair.

“No.” She frowned in confusion. “Why?”

“I, erm-” He let out a deep sigh as he rested his head on the wheel. “I think things aren’t going so well with my girlfriend.” He admitted quietly.

“Oh.” This wasn’t the turn she had expected this conversation to take. “What makes you say that?”

“We’ve been drifting a bit lately. Since… _everything_.” She didn’t need it spelling out that obviously the trip to rehab had put a strain on things. “But lately it’s like she’s avoiding me. It’s not often that we’re in the same place at the same time and when we are, she doesn’t talk to me anymore.” He sounded so defeated as he confessed all this. “I think she’s finally gotten sick of my shit.” He added with a dry laugh.

“Don’t say that!” She chastised. It was hard to try and console him when this conversation was so out of left field. Being stoned wasn’t helping, either.

“What does the band think?” She asked, trying to segue away from his self-deprecating comments.

“I’ve not had the chance to tell them yet. It’s only something I’ve noticed this last week and we’ve been so busy with the BRITs stuff and Notes.” He mumbled.

“I’m sure they’d be able to help you better than I can.”

He continued on his own train of thought, “I just want to be swept off my feet. Is that so bad?” He said with a huff, leaning back in his seat. “I’m fed up of being alone.” He added under his breath.

“I didn’t take you for the settling down type.” She joked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

“You’d be surprised.” He shot back with a small smile.

“Things will work out, Matty.” She tried to reassure him.

“You don’t know that.” He argued.

“I do.” She nodded defensively. “Even if you guys break up, you’ll get through it. You’ve got the band, you’ve got your family, you’ve got your friends. You’ll pull through and be better for it.”

He spent a long moment contemplating those words. She was right - he’d been through worse than a breakup. As much as the prosect of it hurt to think about, he’d be okay if it happened.

“Thanks.” He said as he turned to look at her. “I think I needed to hear that.”

“It’s okay. What’re friends for?” She grinned, feeling glad to have helped.

“You know, I’m really happy we managed to-” As he started speaking, he noticed someone walk out of the building. “Shit!” He hissed as he shrunk down in his seat to hide behind the wheel. “That’s George!” He grabbed her arm, pulling her down as well.

“Why are you hiding from George?” She asked, confused as to why he wouldn’t want to see his best friend.

“He’ll tell me off for being out here instead of in there.” He answered with a look of mild panic.

“He’s probably just gonna keep looking for you.” She pointed out.

“Let him look.” He huffed. “I’d rather be here.” They sat there in silence, waiting to hear footsteps approach the car that never came.

Eventually, the absurdity of the situation (and the weed) got the better of them. Matty was the first to start laughing, but she instantly caught on and joined in. It wasn’t long before they were full on cracking up with side splitting laughter.

“Weed was a good idea.” Matty said, wiping away a stray tear that had fallen in his fits of giggles.

“I’m full of good ideas, what can I say?” She said with a feigned vain look.

“I recall ‘keeping business and pleasure separate’ being one of your ideas.” He reminded her with an eyebrow raised. It had been a long time since she’d stuck by that. It had become too hard in the end. But Matty was the first to make her break that rule, and she was pretty grateful for that considering the friends she had made. But that night at the bar would always hold a special place in her heart.

“Good thing I ignored that idea, huh?”

“Good thing indeed.”


	8. We're Friends, So It's Cool, Why Would It Not Be?

** 23rd of February, 2020 **

Notes on a Conditional Form turned out to be much more of an undertaking than Matty had anticipated. It got delayed. And delayed. And delayed again. Between touring, headlining Reading and Leeds, running Dirty Hit and just general _life_ , it turned out making a twenty-two-track album took longer than a year. Part of him felt annoyed that this project wasn’t going according to plan, but the other part of him knew that this was their best work yet, and it would take however long it would take. Thankfully, he had a good social network to get him through his hectic schedule and keep him on track. The band were invaluable, his family were incredibly supportive, as were his friends. He’d been back at the radio station to bother his favourite host a few times as singles dropped, and the two of them had only gotten closer throughout the year since the BRIT awards. Matty had been incredibly grateful to have his friend back; it was nice to have that extra shoulder to lean on when he was at home.

She’d helped to console him through the breakup as it went down. Despite her best attempts to convince him that things were going to be okay, he knew deep down that they weren’t. When things had been awkward at home, she’d offered to take him out to lunch to help lighten the mood. When he’d been depressed, she tried to be a voice of comfort and reason. When the dust had cleared a bit, and things were a bit more stable, he invited her out to the studio a couple of times for sneak peaks into what was going on with Notes. It was nice to feel like they were close friends again, even if she hadn’t expected that they’d become _this_ close. She supposed she shouldn’t have expected any less from someone as open and honest as Matty. But, unbeknownst to her, Matty still had that lingering memory in the back of his mind of what could’ve happened at the bar. What might’ve been had he paid more attention and made a conscious effort to make time to stay in touch before. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like maybe if that wasn’t the right time, maybe now was? He didn’t know when he’d next get a chance to shoot his shot.

He pulled anxiously at the sleeve of his faded long sleeve t-shirt as he stood at the studio door, taking a deep breath to compose himself before making his way inside. She didn’t turn to look at him when he sat himself down on the corner of her desk, already knowing full well who it would be.

“If I push this button, what happens?” He asked as he leaned over her to touch her soundboard.

She slapped his hand away, “Don’t touch my shit, Matty.” She grumbled. “Or I’ll ban you from interviews.” She added as she threw a challenging look his way.

“You wouldn’t be able to ban me if you tried.” He smirked as she just rolled her eyes and went back to what she was doing on her computer. “Oh! I saw a thing on the way here and it made me think of you.” He said as he stood up and started rifling through his pocket.

“Oh?” He fished out a small keyring and handed it to her - it was of an eight ball. “You bought me a tacky keyring?” She asked as she stared down at it in confusion.

“Thought you might like it.” He shrugged with a knowing smile as he rounded the desk and took a seat. She stared at him for a moment, trying to work out what her friend was playing at, but he wasn’t giving anything away.

They had a bit more time to chat before the interview officially started. Matty didn’t seem like his usual self, but she couldn’t quite work out why. He was still just as talkative and charming as usual, but something was off in his demeanour. It was almost as if he was fidgeting more and in his own head a lot, but not in the way he used to be. She’d have to ask him about it after the interview. Maybe the album was bothering him again.

“Matty, lovely to have you back.” She spoke into her microphone as she took one last glance around the studio to make sure the cameras were recording.

“Always good to be back.” He nodded. “I miss being on here when I’m out on tour.” He added with an exaggerated pout.

“Ah, you’re just saying that.” She said light-heartedly. “I’m sure you have better things to do while crammed in a tour bus.”

“Never!” He said quickly as he shook his head. “I try and catch up on as many of the interviews as I can.”

“Why?” She blurted out, unable to help her curiosity.

“I like the sound of your voice.” He said in a joking tone, but it made her blush and look away all the same. “And you do good interviews with good guests. Helps me stay in the loop.” He continued casually.

“Well… it’s always nice to know I’m doing my job right.” She chuckled, trying her best to swallow down the anxious feeling she got when Matty was overly friendly.

She segued away from that to try and alleviate some of the nerves that had settled in, “You guys are playing in Wales tonight, but you played two shows at the O2 last night and the night before-”

“Yep.”

“How were they?” She asked like she hadn’t been on the guest list for them.

“Really good.” Matty grinned. “Audience was brilliant.”

“And how is Notes coming along? Is it sounding good?” She asked.

“Don’t ask that like you haven’t already heard it.” He scoffed with a laugh.

She gave him an instant look of disapproval, but found it hard not to go along with him. “Well I’m not asking for my opinion; I’m asking for yours.” She shot back.

He just smiled playfully as he held his hands up in defeat. “It’s sounding good.” He eventually answered.

“What can you tell us about how it’s coming together?” She questioned. Most of these things she already personally knew, but she was well aware the station was banking on this being the major interview for Notes, as opposed to just for a single. So, she had to ask the standard stuff.

“Notes has had to be this collection of works. We made it during the campaign of another album. We made it in every country in the world. We’ve been through this period of self-growth and self-reflection personally and professionally. It’s really manifested into this very, very long… episodic…” He pulled a face as he tried to find the right words, and ending up jumping to a different train of thought. “The song that I think I’m gonna put out next is If You’re Too Shy, Let Me Know, and it’s the most 1975-y 1975 song in the world. It’s quite fun. It’s quite a warm record. I think after People and Love It If We Made It, after all those intense socio-political expressions, there’s a lot of… home? It’s quite a humble record.” He answered. “It’s a deconstruction of the already deconstructed. So, we’re getting into fabric and material and texture. The 1975 is me channelling what I’m into, interpreting what I’m into. Songs that I’m into, most of the time. If you saw my house, you’d really understand Notes on a Conditional Form, you know what I mean? It’s all very raw.”

She nodded in understanding. He was right, the vibe of the album did suit the vibe of his house. She’d been in his house more than enough times to see the way that the inspiration for his art infiltrated his life. “Warm and home seem like pretty good descriptors from what we heard most recently with The Birthday Party.” She agreed. “The last time you mentioned that song on the show, you said you thought it was your best song. Do you still?”

Matty let out a huff as he flopped back into his chair and thought about it. “Well… I still really like it. But I’ve finished writing the rest of the album now, too. I can’t pick favourites. It’s best listened to as the whole statement.” He explained.

“Did you find it hard to pick the singles in light of that?” She questioned. “People, Frail State of Mind, The Birthday Party and Me and You Together Song have all been very different both musically and lyrically.” As she said this, she realised it probably wouldn’t be a 1975 record if it didn’t sound like five different bands had made it.

He nodded slightly before answering, “The only way I can express myself is through albums. I’m no Drake who’s good at holding attention for three minutes at a time. This is just a small cog in a bigger thing.” He said with a vague hand gesture.

“And this… _bigger thing_ , is it proving bigger than you expected? What with all the delays?” She asked, trying to hide her teasing tone. 

Matty rolled his eyes, “As an idea, touring and making an album is really exciting, but in reality, it’s really hard work.” He laughed. “I have to plan my creativity, which seems sort of counterintuitive. But creativity does suffer from procras- you can procrastinate too much if you don’t have a timeline. Like I would’ve spent another three years on that last album and made it one and a half percent better.” He answered, before pulling himself back on track. “But in short, yes.”

“Do you know when the release will be now?”

“April. Late April.” He said with a decisive nod. “It’s dependent on the vinyl, really, and how long that takes to get sorted.”

“So, the album itself is done and just waiting on pressing?” She asked.

“It’s done in regards to _who cares_.” He said with a lazy shrug. “Like it’s getting mastered and stuff. I mean, George is an OCD nightmare. He can’t finish an album. So, when we rip it out of his hands, it’ll be out.” He answered.

“If it’s all written and good to go, can you give us an exclusive of a song title that isn’t out yet?” She asked.

He gave her a sarcastic look of ‘you already know all the track names’ before he hummed quietly as he thought about that. Quite a few names had already come out in one way or another. “Guys?” Matty eventually offered, sounding mildly unsure of himself.

That was a good answer. She knew that song offered him a lot to talk about. “What’s it about?”

“People in bands, especially straight guys in bands, don’t really talk about it that much. But we’re really lucky that we love each other so much. We’ve been together so long that we’re kind of like brothers? We’ve got a song called Girls, right. But I wanted to write a song about how much I loved my mates, and I wanted people to have a love song for their mates. And it’s the last song on the record and it’s kind of just about how much I love my mates?” He explained with a loud laugh. “There’s a lot of cute on the record, I think. There’s a lot of wholesome on the record. Because there is People and there is environmental stuff, but I’m also knackered…” He said with a deep sigh, running at one of his eyes slightly. “Some of it is a release from the kind of tension that I feel in society.” He elaborated.

“That makes sense. You have quite a few high-strung songs.” She concurred. “Does Notes draw an era of the band to a close?” She questioned.

“Notes just kind of says that there are no endings, there’s only kind of weird beginnings. And you don’t really know that time has changed until it’s gone.” He seemed very sentimental as he was speaking about this. “And this time now that you think is the time that you’re not supposed to be remembering, is the time that you’re gonna look back on and it’s gonna be gone. There’s no ribbons, there’s no… it’s just real life.” He shrugged.

“So, The 1975 will continue as normal, then?” She asked with an eyebrow raised.

“I think that it’s a constantly evolving thing. There’s an obvious end to an era with Music for Cars, just because we’ve come to the end of a decade. The 1975 has to be a slightly different thing in two years, it just will naturally be. There’s lots of stuff that we’re gonna do. The 1975 doesn’t really operate without each other. One thing I know we’re gonna do is I’m doing a Matty record and George is doing a George record and we’re gonna produce each other’s.” He answered, looking excited at the prospect of a new project to tackle.

“Now’s probably a good chance to break away to some songs.” She said as she took a sip of her coffee. “Do you have any requests? What’re you listening to these days?”

He let out a low groan. “I don’t get time to listen to much. I mostly just listen to the bands on our label, Beabadoobee, No Rome, those guys. The list is endless now…” Matty trailed off. “If I’m not listening to my own stuff while we’re recording it, I’m listening to that.”

“Nothing that’s been stuck in your head, then?”

“Put Me and You Together Song on.” He grinned.

“Your own song has been stuck in your head?” She asked with a confused frown.

“A bit lyrically, yeah.” He chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair.

“All right, you heard it, folks. Me and You Together Song by The 1975, up next.” She spoke in her calculated presenter voice.

Most of their song breaks now were just them dicking around; telling dumb anecdotes, swapping stories. She was grateful for the chance to get to switch the cameras and mics off and relish in the full extent of her friendship with Matty, rather than keeping it radio friendly. The only issue was just that they were annoyingly short; their conversations always felt like they were being cut short.

“Now, we should probably discuss one of the biggest moments in your career…” She started as they kicked back into the interview, seeing his look of intrigue. “How was headlining Reading and Leeds?”

Matty broke into a massive grin. “Wicked.” He nodded eagerly. “The only thing that I wanted by the time we got to Reading was for The 1975 to be like cartoon characters. Aggressive, romantic, aspirational – whatever it was, I wanted it to feel cartoonish and on the nose. Even dropping People the night before and opening with it, that was a big moment. People were like ‘fair enough, it takes a lot of bollocks to headline your first major festival and open with a song that’s been out for like, six hours.’ ” He chuckled to himself. “It went well, in light of that. Kids in the front row already knew the lyrics. It was mad.” He added with a look of disbelief.

“You guys have also been doing a bit of a different kind of tour, you’ve been reprinting your old shirts, planting trees for every ticket sold-”

“Mmhm.”

“Was there a catalyst for starting to tackle these big topics?” She asked. “For getting people on board like Greta Thunberg?”

“I think that we… I dunno.” His brows knitted together as he thought about it. “I think our records are lyrically about _me_. Erm, so, it’s kind of about what I’m scared of, and what I love, and it’s always kind of, of a moment. I think Love It If We Made It was of a time, and it references everything that one would be thinking or worrying about, and I think that People is obviously a reflection of that. It’s kind of a sense of urgency. But the Greta track was because… it was the fourth time we were approaching the same opening on one of our records, and we wanted it to be the most modern statement possible. And she holds the most modern statement. So, it was kind of giving that another platform.” Matty answered.

“What was it like working with her?” She questioned, half out of her own interest. He’d spoken about the collaboration before, but only in bits and pieces.

“She’s one of the only people who really inspire us. She’s a force of nature.” He said as he stared into the middle distance while he remembered the recording session. “I just really wanted to work with her. They were really keen to do it. I just kind of got her to – I didn’t edit it or anything, I just told her to say whatever you want. Start to finish, that was it, completely unedited. She did it about three times until she was happy with it. And her dad was there and her dad’s amazing. And yeah… it was an amazing afternoon. We’re incredibly proud to be associated with her.” He rattled off excitedly, his pace picking up as he got invested in his answer.

She made a noise of agreement. “Did it give you a renewed sense of hope to work with someone like her?”

“Working with Greta… she doesn’t like pat you on the back or anything, let me tell you. But she has such a sense of purpose. I just felt inspired in the way that I was when I was young by people that I thought were fucking badass. I grew up in the later punk hardcore scene, so I’ve kind of made a duty now I’m older to meet a lot of my heroes. And they’re all as badass as I thought, but the _most_ punk person I’ve ever met is Greta in regards to this palpable sense of conviction. There’s no words or time wasted even when you’re with them. It’s pretty powerful.” He said with a look of certainty.

“Are you still touring non-stop? Still working yourself to death?” She asked, segueing onto her next topic.

“Ah, yeah… Stuff has been a bit quieter now that my girlfriend’s not around. You know how it is.” He said, giving her a look that instantly made her want to look at anything other than him. She’d helped Matty through the breakup, sure, but that didn’t overly mean she wanted to chat about his girlfriend. Since they’d gotten close again, she’d found old feelings of infatuation resurfacing. Which was easy enough to deal with when it was just the two of them chatting about music, but when it got down to anything serious it made things all too real.

“Hopefully things haven’t been too difficult.” She said absentmindedly as she took a sip of her coffee.

“It’s just hard to meet people that aren’t already in my network. Ideally, it would be nice to try and see if someone I already had a connection with was interested.” He said nonchalantly as he tapped his foot to hers under the table.

In that moment, how quickly she inhaled her coffee would’ve rivalled the power of a Dyson. The hot liquid burned down her throat, and she shut her mic off quickly to cover her spluttering as it hit her lungs. But Matty’s laughter was no doubt caught live on air by his own microphone. He carried on talking to try and cover her coughing fit. “It’s just so hard to meet any new people in my position. I’ve had the same social circle for a long time now. I’ll probably sound like a conceited twat, but people either idolise me when they don’t really know me, or they think that they know me and hate me for it.” He watched with an amused smile as she took a swig from her water bottle to try and calm her throat down. She stared him down as he continued, “I just want to find someone that I have a proper connection with, you know what I mean? Need some kind of... prior experience, a friendship base. Someone who’s seen me go through my highs and lows, someone who’s known me for a while. That’s what I’m after these days.” She took a few deep breaths to try and regulate her breathing, and heart rate. Why was he doing this right now. Why on _earth_ was he still talking. What the _fuck_. It seemed that he had finally said his piece, looking over at her nonchalantly for her reply.

“That-” She croaked, clearing her throat before continuing, “that all makes sense.”

“I guess we’ll just have to see what happens, huh?” He shrugged casually.

She was struggling to find the words to continue this conversation, but they were live, and she knew it would seem suspicious to jump to a song break so suddenly. “You don’t often speak so… _candidly_ about your personal life.” She said, glaring at him for making her fuck up so badly on air.

“It’s nice to make the odd exception sometimes.” He shot back. _Fuck_. That’s what all this was about - the keyring, the flirting, the blatant suggestion that he wanted to date her – he was trying to get back what they’d had all those years ago. Her mind reeled at the thought. Had he really been sitting on that for this long? And did he really have the _audacity_ to bring it up during her fucking show??

Instead of fully responding to his… whatever the fuck that was, she instead just changed topics. “What’s next for The 1975?” She asked, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to work out what she was going to do about this.

“Artistically? I think I’d like to make a soundtrack.” He answered seamlessly, acting like he hadn’t just destroyed her composure.

“For a film?”

“Yeah, or for like a game.” He corrected with a shrug. “A game would be dope. I’d love to do a really good game. Like a play dead game like Inside or Limbo.”

“Not like a 1975 game?” She chuckled, teasing him slightly despite her racing thoughts.

“Nah, but I’m sure it would be full of various references to different bits and pieces. I’m so self-referential and I’m so obsessed with references, and when I do an interview, I’ll reference a million things a minute, I kind of get away with referencing other peoples art. They don’t think I’m just copying. Because why would I copy? I’m so obsessed with other people’s art.” He explained.

She was still struggling to think of what to say next, her mind going blank on questions that were interview appropriate. Taking a look at her screen, she saw the text line scrolling by. Eventually she saw something that caught her eye.

“A lot of fans really resonate with how open you are about your down moments.” She prompted, looking across to him and hoping that he’d take that and run with it. Looking at her still clearly disarrayed state, Matty threw her a bone and started rambling as he liked to do.

“It’s just time and self-reflection, really. I don’t get a lot of time to _feel_ my behaviour. I do a show every night, so I can’t ever really know what mood I’m in. Because I always get this adrenalin rush or I always get this thing that makes me something else. I never sit in my mood. But I’m getting better at it, at trying to work out how I’m feeling. Six days is the longest I’ve had off consecutively since 2011.” He answered with a dry laugh.

“That’s pretty full on.” She agreed.

“It is, but it’s amazing, I don’t have time to get bored. But there’s lots of things I don’t know about life.” He frowned, staring down at the table.

“Like what?” She asked, just going with what felt natural until she could run out the interview. She knew it was nearly over.

“I just need to live, man. I’ve had an amazing life, but I didn’t have a ‘twenties’. I was onstage for my whole twenties, and I didn’t grow up properly. I’m not feeling sorry for myself; I’m just saying I need some life experiences that are fundamentally different. Some of our fans have kids, proper jobs of have got married. I’m talking to people who have an understanding of a world that I don’t even have access to.” He explained with a look that almost struck her as melancholic. 

She couldn’t help herself from asking the next instant thing that came to mind, “Are you working towards that sort of thing?”

“Building a relationship with a place, an animal, a person is dangerous when you do what I do. I just feel like, in order to be as emotionally present in my art and on stage, I’ve had to get rid of some of that emotional presence in my real life. And it’s fucking me up now. But I’m hoping to change that.” He added seriously.

The interview was finished. She could wrap it up. She could say a minimal amount and then cut to tracks. Thank _fuck_ for that. Her brain was fried. The instant sense of relief she felt as she finally was able to put the music back on and cut the camera and mic feeds was second to none. But she could see Matty watching her in her peripheral vision.

“Stop giving me that look.” She muttered as she stayed focused on her screen.

“You mean my face?” He asked with a smirk.

“You _know_ what I fucking mean, Matty.” She said through gritted teeth.

He stood up, walking around to her side of the desk and standing behind her chair. “We’ve had a lot of good times, you and I,” He started. She let out a deep sigh, resting her head in her hands as his hand came to rest on her shoulder. “and I didn’t mean to jeopardise that by being a twat on your show, I promise.” He laughed.

“Actions speak louder than words, Matty.” She mumbled.

“Look at me for a sec.” Matty said, his hand urging her to turn in her chair to face him.

“Do I have to?” She asked with a groan.

“I’d prefer it, love.”

She begrudgingly did as he asked, sitting back up properly and spinning in her chair to face him. He looked nervous as anything with the way he was drumming his fingers on his jeans and trying not to rock onto the balls of his feet, which just assured her that she knew exactly what he wanted to talk about. At least that made her feel a bit better about her own state of mind as her heart pounded in her chest. “I know I asked a while ago, but things were a bit different back then. So, how about that drink? And maybe dinner with it.” He asked simply. She had expected a bit more of a conversation before this. Long discussions on where they were at in their lives, how things had changed, that sort of thing. Not just a straight up offer like that.

“Like a date?” She asked, feeling the need to clarify.

“Yeah.” He nodded with a hopeful look in his eyes.

She thought about it for a minute. Realistically, she’d _kind of_ spent the last six months hoping that he might’ve still felt the same as he did at the bar. But being faced with the realisation of that desire now all at once in the space of a half an hour interview was hard to handle. “Sure.” She eventually said, watching as he broke into the brightest grin that she thought she’d ever seen on him.


	9. I Didn't Feel Alright, Until You Spoke to Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Eve, folks!

** 30th of May, 2020 **

The call connected, and she saw Matty’s familiar face pop up on her screen. “This is _weird_.” He muttered as he pulled a hand through his hair, or lack thereof at the moment other than the weird tufts going on at the back.

“Tell me about it.” She huffed with a dry laugh as she tried to set up her screen capture programs.

“You think all interviews will be like this now?” He mused as he leaned back on the lounge that he was sat on. “You think all _shows_ will be like this now?” He asked with a profound look. “How weird would that be, having to livestream shows for the rest of our career… Sorry, I should shut up.” He chastised himself, shaking his head slightly to get himself back into interview mode.

“No, it’s okay, this isn’t live.” She reassured him. “I’ll just edit the footage afterwards and send it in.”

“So… how much can I say that’ll still make the cut?” He asked with a devious smirk.

“Behave, Matty.” She said, shooting him a look of warning. He just mumbled something to himself about ‘no fun’. “You ready?” She asked as she met his gaze through the screen. He just nodded.

“Matty, great to have you on the show. Especially with how… strange, stuff has been lately. Have you been keeping well?” She started, adjusting her volume slightly to hear him better.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He smiled. “I’m in the best place I can be. In a studio in the countryside, it’s where I made the last two records.” He elaborated.

“A studio in the countryside sounds pretty luxurious.” She prompted with an eyebrow raised.

“It’s the only studio that I use these days, really. I’m really friendly with the people who own it, so I spend most of my time here. I spent the past two years pretty much here. So, as soon as this happened, I just came here.” He answered with a shrug.

“I’m sure it would be relaxing being out in the country during all this.”

“I kind of went away anyway, just before it all started kicking off. It’s a lovely kind of country estate that happens to have a studio in it. It’s been pretty nice being out here with George and my girlfriend and my dog.” He said with a broad grin.

“What’ve you been doing to keep busy? Obviously, you’ve not been playing shows.” She questioned.

“When the tour got cancelled, I was kind of like… okay, I suppose, make music again? That was not remotely the plan.” He frowned, looking pensive about that for a second. “To be honest with you, when this happened it was so- _is_ so hard for so many people,” He corrected, “and I, y’know, making music I can do that in my head if I really want to. So, I feel really privileged to get to come here and do this. And I just got really obsessed with being positive. And being positive for me is doing positive stuff, like… not saying stupid stuff on Twitter all the time,” Matty laughed slightly with a pointed look, “putting a positive body of work into the world. So, I’m just trying to work on that.”

“That definitely sounds more productive than most people. I think I’ve just been sat on the couch watching stuff on Netflix.” She chuckled.

“Well, I’ve not been _constantly_ productive.” He argued with a look of amusement. “I think I’ve finished Youtube now… So, I’ve got nothing left in my life.” He added with a laugh.

“Notes on a Conditional Form finally came out 8 days ago. Has it felt like it’s been a long time coming?” She asked.

“It has been a long time.” He agreed with a nod, his gaze flicking upward as someone clearly was doing something behind his screen. “But I kind of was prepared for that, at least. There’s a lot of talk of why the album got pushed back and all those kinds of things. It’s kind of irrelevant. The premise of my idea was just to continuously… to have a real time expression. To continuously release music over two cycles in the way that you would one. And that’s what I did, I put out an album and then seven months later I put out People. And then I’ve continued to put out music every month since then. So, that was the plan. Where the album fell in that plan was – I mean it changed constantly because I was like ‘this is our best album’, I don’t give a fuck if Reddit are gonna cry.” He scoffed. “When I made this record, I was like _fuck_. This is the last 1975 record for ages. Not the _last_ 1975 record, but this is definitely us stopping making music for a bit.”

“How did you settle on the album art, in the end?”

“There’s essentially been lots of different album art for this record.” He huffed. “We live in a world of iTunes uploads six months before the record comes out. So, someone’s like, we need a piece of artwork. And I keep going ‘okay, I’ll give you _a_ piece of artwork’. The artwork changed every other week. The artwork now is basically the most minimal version of what we’ve had. And it’s all been based on texture. The record has been about deconstruction. The record feels like it should be in a paper bag.” He paused for a moment, before clearly an idea came to mind as he continued his answer with twice as much excitement. “I wanted to steal the Durutti Column idea, they’re one of my favourite bands of all time. They made one record and the vinyl cover was sandpaper so it destroyed any record it was next to. I mean… oh my god, how fucking _badass_ is that shit. That is so my vibe. I wish that I’d’ve done it. But I love that idea so much that I couldn’t pass it off as my own.”

“Has the current state of things affected the album? You’ve had at least two months where this was all actively happening before the record was released.” She said, watching as his image dropped resolution slightly.

“It was always gonna be a series of captured moments.” Matty answered bluntly. “There was no material that existed from before, so it’s pretty much all been written in this time. Every time I make a record, I put everything into it. So, by the time I get to the next record, the things that I have to talk about get more specific. And it’s very reactive to the time, I mean People is a literal example of that.” He elaborated.

“So, would you say that you’re always writing in the present? You don’t write reflective songs?” She questioned.

“When A Brief Inquiry came out it was like a big deal or whatever, it was especially a big deal for us on the level of what we’d experienced before. I don’t know how to be big. I don’t know how to do The 1975. I don’t _know_ what making an album is. And I suppose in that situation you can either look back retrospectively and react to what’s happening, all this shit people are talking and all this praise people are getting; and you can make this record that you’ve said you’re gonna do with _that_ in mind, and be a big band. Or you… go home, essentially.” He said simply. “We love just making records and that’s what we’re gonna keep doing, and if we think too much about that we’re gonna make music that isn’t sincere. If people feel like you’re trying to give them what they want, they smell a rat and then you’re done. We don’t have a formula for what we do, let’s not pretend that we did. We don’t know what we’re doing.” He cracked a small smile at that. “There is no formula for it, so I can only react naturally to stuff. So, when that started to work, like ‘fuck it, let’s do what we want, make what we want’ and then we were like ‘fuck, we’re making our best record’. Then, putting the album back and stuff… I wasn’t worried about when it was gonna end, because I knew it would have a natural conclusion.” He answered with a sense of finality. It was nice for her to hear him so on his game. When he was on a roll with answers like this, it was so easy to get captivated by how his mind worked.

“Did you have an overarching theme for the record?” She asked.

“We put out People and Greta and everyone’s like ‘it’s gonna be the environmental record’ and I was like it’s not gonna be a one dynamic record cause that’s not why I do this. I’m not even like a single artist. I can do singles because I do it by accident but, er, it’s a part of this long form expression where I’m trying to get everything out. So, it is a record about the environment but it’s a record about me.” Matty said with a sincere look. “What I’m scared of, what excites me, what turns me on. I’m always trying to figure out who I am, the search for the definitive self. But like escapism for me as a part of the whole thing of what I do is really important. Like I don’t want Love It If We Made It and People if there’s not moments of escapism. Because kind of what I’m talking about, is that all these ideas are _about_ escapism – love, sex, drugs, religion, they’re just forms of losing yourself. They’re just forms of relinquishing responsibility in the moment. Right?” He glanced to her in his screen, making sure that she was following his train of thought. “And I think that I talk about those ideas a lot, so I want to deliver those ideas at times. It’s escapism as an excuse for not saying something. Like If You’re Too Shy, I was quite conflicted about that song, because it’s not Hallelujah, it’s not fucking _pain._ ” He clenched a fist for emphasis, “I think that I’m so focused a lot of the time on getting those things out… It’s not that I find that shit easy, but that sort of 80s dancey pop thing comes quite easy to me. I feel like I don’t have to dig very deep. And because I genuinely believe the things you wanna leave out are probably the things you should put in, in any art, there’s not that many bits I wanna leave out? Which makes me-” 

His image lagged for a second, and then screen turned black. His connection had dropped. She sighed in annoyance as she tried to start the video chat again, only to feel her phone buzzing in her pocket.

“I think we broke it.” Matty said as soon as she picked up.

“I think _you_ broke it.” She laughed.

“You have no evidence of that.” He shot back.

“Hotspot to your phone.” She instructed, eager to get the footage filmed as she knew editing would take twice as long.

He made a sound of confusion, “I dunno where my phone is.”

“Then hotspot to George’s phone.” She sighed.

“Okay, okay. Give me a second.”

She took a moment to readjust her screen when the call reconnected before launching back into questions. “Too Shy is quite a feel-good tune.” She prompted.

“Too Shy is great.” He nodded as a small black nose came into view on the screen, prodding at Matty’s arm. “Too Shy is like… about trusting our instincts? I think sometimes when we’re in a room together… I don’t quite know how to describe it, that atypical 1975 sound comes out? We’ve-” Suddenly the dog on his lap began barking. “No, Mayhem.” He frowned down at the puppy. “You’ve been fed already.” He said as he picked the dog up and put him down on the ground. “Go play somewhere else.” He added. She watched as the dog pitter pattered away in the background behind him. “Sorry about that, he’s, erm, he’s still in training.” He laughed. “We’ve been in lots of different places, emotionally and mentally, and I think sometimes I get a bit like ‘it has to change the world’ kind of thing. But I think pop music can do that in a slightly different way with escapism or just _fun_.” He finished.

“Trusting your instincts is an interesting way to describe that song.” She thought out loud. “You always say that your albums are about you-”

“Mmhm.”

“and that they help you figure yourself out. Did you learn anything new about yourself on this record?” She asked.

“Lots of things.” Matty said as he let out a deep breath, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand, scratching slightly at the stubble there. “It’s hard for me because I’ve kind of backed myself into a corner a little bit where I’ve kind of been like ‘tell the truth, then you don’t have to worry a bout what you say’, because you’re never gonna be contradicting yourself. But I think as I’m getting older, you know when I’m fucking making Love Me at twenty-two, and you ask me what I’m revealing it’s like ‘I’m led by my ego’ or ‘I’m conflicted about being famous’ these revelations are fine.” He said with a dismissive hand wave. “I’m thirty-one years old now, the shit I’m learning about myself now it’s not like shiny and endearing and charming, it’s fucking _raw_.” He looked almost conflicted about answering this question. “Do you know what I mean? Now, I’m getting into a position where it almost feels unhealthy to answer that sort of question… what’ve I truly learned about myself? Stuff that I need to figure out before I start talking about it.” He said truthfully.

“Was there anything that you didn’t want to share on the album? Anything that was too personal?” She questioned.

“No.” He answered instantly, something out the window next to him catching his eye. “That’s the rule. Can’t do that.” He shook his head. “If it gets into lyric territory where I’m comfortable enough to physically write it down and reflect on it, then no. What I’ve learned just through experience is you can’t figure out really scientifically how to do what you do if the game that you’re in is emotions. I am quite into the demystification of these processes, because that’s what I do: I feel something, I have a set of words, something comes to my mind, I write it down, then that’s the core of it, then you’re a songwriter. You try and convey big ideas in small words, or small ideas in, er, that’s the craft. It’s just about trusting your instinct and writing it down and kind of going with that.” He shrugged.

She heard a scratching at the closed door of her office, which she tried to push to the back of her mind as she moved onto the next question. “It sounds like there’s a lot of America in the record?”

“I’ve always found America fascinating…” He hummed. “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America, for example, was two songs. It was the same piece of music but I had a version of it that was just about Christian America and its oppression on kind of young - mainly young gay people - and that whole world,” He made a face as he tried to phrase that right, “and another version that was kind of about the prison industrial complex, having a for profit prison system. It was kind of these two individual songs. After a while I kind of just Brion Gysin’d, cut up technique to the both of them and just chose my favourite, objectively favourite lines, and then just made one song out of it. So, it’s kind of this surrealist reflection on different things.” He explained.

“Is this, uh,” Matty started, frowning as he realised that he was not quite sure what he wanted to ask. “Is this working?”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Like the interview, is this the sort of footage you want?” He rephrased.

“Yeah.” She said with a small shrug.

“Good. Good, good.” He nodded to himself. “It just feels weird not being able to bounce off your energy.” He added with an almost sorrowful look about him.

“Just pretend we’re in the radio station.” She reassured him.

“If we were in your studio, I’m sure I’d be even more distracted.” He chuckled quietly with a knowing look.

“Good to keep going?” She asked, avoiding his remark.

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Obviously, things have changed a lot in the last few months. What do you think we need to preserve going forward?” She questioned.

Matty made a thoughtful noise as he leaned back into his the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “The ability for people to create…” He said eventually. “I don’t know what needs to be preserved for the likes of _me_ , but I’m not a regular candidate. I haven’t figured out live music yet, I don’t know.” He said with a frown. “What we can’t do, is just keep doing what we want to do, which is just our thing - tour the world, do the fucking big show - but just hope that we can massage it enough for it to be socially acceptable. _We_ need to reinvent it, we being big players in music.” He placed a hand on his chest as he said that. “I think what needs to be preserved on a social level is people’s ability to create art and keeping music completely democratic. Limiting people’s ability to do it through lack of funding or just through social regressive ideas, that’s what’s dangerous. Self-expression through art is the thing that needs to be saved most.”

She nodded in agreement as he finished up his answer. “On the note of creating, what are you making at the moment?”

“I’ve been like… kind of organising what songs of the old ones that exist on the internet, that I’m gonna put out as like an official, like the first album that kind of never came out?” He seemed unsure of his answer. “But I’m gonna follow it with… like, there’s so much later in between Drive Like I Do and The 1975 stuff, and nobody’s heard any of that.” He said with an eager smile.

“Around creating and producing, have you been using this unexpected down time to solidify your relationships?” She asked, hearing that scratching again.

“Totally, man. It’s been really nice to be in touch with friends and family so frequently, when often we’re struggling to find the time.” He got a fond look on his face as he said that. “I’m also really, really into technology, it’s something that really excites me. And I think people are being forced by this situation to extend their communication through different types of technology that normally aren’t used. The only technology we really like are ones we can immediately integrate into our life, and if we have to slow down, we get a bit bored of it so we don’t really try it out. But now people are like… trying technology in a more kind of long form way? So, I think we’re gonna have this desire for a different experience of technology. But that might be the silver lining to an actual apocalypse.” He rattled off, mostly just voicing his train of thought out loud.

She decided to ignore his rambling, linking back to her original line of questioning, “Those sorts of relationships, is that what inspired the final sentimental track on the record, Guys?” She asked.

“I can’t make retrospective statements.” Matty said, clearly taking the question in his own direction. “Every single time a statement ends, the idea to follow that with a retrospective statement, something that looks back, something that is celebratory of a previous thing, _ugh_.” He shuddered. “It makes me want to crawl out of my skin. I _hate_ it. This is the only record where I do look back a little bit. But I think the only time I specifically do it is in Guys. It’s quite sad, but it’s also one for the homies. I wanted to write a love song for friends.” He answered.

She paused for a moment, trying to think of what questions she had asked and how long they had been recording. There was probably enough footage now for the interview.

“All right, we might wrap it up there.” She said with a nod.

“You sure?” He asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I’d better let you get back to your recording and your dog.” She smiled at him.

“I’m sure my girlfriend is wondering why I’m taking so long.” He said with a quiet laugh.

“No doubt.” She chuckled. “Thanks for your time, Matty.” She added.

“It’s always a pleasure.” He beamed.

“Stay safe.”

“You too.”

As the interview wrapped up, she watched as Matty hung up the call and the screen turned black. She closed out the screen capture program, waiting for it to confirm that the video file had been successfully saved before turning her laptop off. God forbid she lost all that footage and they had to do all that again. She opened up her office door, stepping around the small black dog lying in front of the frame. His ears perked up as he saw her, instantly following her behind her as she walked out.

“What was all that shit about retrospection?” She asked as she rounded the corner into the lounge room. Matty turned slightly on the couch to look at her over his shoulder. “You nearly got stuck on it twice.”

“Yeah, sorry.” He winced as Mayhem shot past her and jumped up on the couch next to Matty. “I got myself on a tangent.” He explained as she sat down next to him. “I think that went well, though?” He asked as he put his arm around her and pulled her into his side.

She made a noise of agreement. “Well enough.” She said with a smirk.

“Hey!” He laughed loudly. “I can’t be at fault for the shitty connection out here.”

“It’ll be fine.” She nodded.

“Of course it will,” He grinned, leaning in to kiss her briefly, “because my girlfriend does the best interviews.”


End file.
